Bayek of Nowhere, Father of No One
by Vampire-Badger
Summary: Years after Bayek has killed the men responsible for the death of his son, a man calling himself a Sage offers him a second chance-to travel through time, down the line of the Brotherhood he's just begun, and fix what's wrong. And maybe, if he's lucky, Bayek will get something else out of all this. A little bit of closure. A family.
1. Chapter 1

In the course of his travels across Egypt, trying to find the men that murdered his son, Bayek finds his way into all kinds of unexpected situations. He is a desperate man willing to do anything for closure on Khemu's killers, and desperation takes him across Egypt and back, through sandstorms so dense Senu can't even fly, to cities, to burned out villages, to open fields, to the depths of the Nile.

And to the tombs.

He really shouldn't keep finding reasons to break into those, but he does. And the more tombs he sees, the more he realizes that they fall into two categories. The ones that are more or less as he expects them to be—burial sites for ancient pharaohs, sacred places where they were laid to rest in preparation for the journey to the field of reeds. Bayek knows how to react to those—reverently, and with as much respect as he can, given that he is an intruder.

And then there are the _other_ tombs. The ones made of strange, smooth black stone, the ones where unknown voices speak to him in an indecipherable language. It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out that these tombs—or at least these innermost chambers—are not Egyptian. But it's only after Bayek has seen several of them that he starts to get a… a feeling for them. These tombs are also part of something ancient. They're just not Egyptian.

They're fascinating, but to be perfectly honest Bayek has a lot on his mind these days, and no energy to devote to another mystery. When he happens to stumble on one of these tombs, Bayek will listen to the nonsense words, and marvel at the sheer scale, but then he'll move on. He doesn't expect this time to be any different, except that this time as soon as the monologue starts, Bayek hears a second voice, and he can understand this one.

"None of this is for you, you know," it says. "It's all for her."

Bayek turns, hand going instinctively to his sword, eyes scanning his surroundings. There's a man standing maybe twenty feet away, older than Bayek by maybe twenty years. His hair is an unruly mane of dark curls, and when Bayek steps carefully toward him he's surprised at his eyes—two distinctly different colors. "Who is this for, then?" he asks. "Who is she?"

"She—that doesn't matter right now. The animus will prioritize the message over your memories, so this is the safest time for us to talk."

Bayek hesitates. "None of that makes any sense," he says. "Who are you?"

"I am a Sage."

"I meant your name—"

"That doesn't matter," the man—the Sage—says. "Listen, Bayek."

"So your name doesn't matter, but you just happen to know mine?"

The Sage seems genuinely amused by that. "If a man will travel the length and breadth of Egypt, saving every lost child and hurting innocent that crosses your path, that man's name will spread."

Bayek hesitates, dropping his blade just a fraction. He has a point.

"Bayek," the Sage says. "I know you're hurting. I heard what happened to your son, and I'm sorry. But you will have another chance."

 _Khemu_. As always, even the briefest reminder of his lost son is enough to send a throb of pain all the way through to Bayek's core, and he tightens his hold on his blade, but this time there's a halting excitement that follows the words. In this time and this place, the promise almost sounds like a prophecy—and there is nothing Bayek wants as badly as he wants to be a father again. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks. "Another chance? How…?"

"Someday," the Sage says. "When your work in this time is done, come find me. I'll explain everything."

"In this _time_ —"

"When your work is done," the Sage says. "Come find me. Your eagle will find the way."

The voice behind him, speaking in that unknown language, suddenly falls into silence. Bayek glances back instinctively, but of course there's no physical person speaking there, and nothing to look at. When he remembers himself, and looks back for the Sage, the man is already walking away. He seems to know the place better than Bayek does, because even though Bayek runs after him immediately, the Sage turns a corner that he just doesn't see, and he doesn't manage to spot him again.

-/-

Years go by before Bayek gives any serious thought to tracking down the Sage again. But when he finally has his revenge—for what that's worth—and Aya is _gone_ , replaced by an Amunet that Bayek doesn't recognize, and there is nothing else in the whole of Egypt that seems… _worth doing_ , then Bayek's mind turns back to that promise of another chance. By now he knows there will be no more children. His life as it used to be is dust, and he will never be a father. So he sets out again, Senu flying above him, searching for the Sage. And after a week or so of searching, she seems to spot something, and leads Bayek off at a new angle. They keep travelling for a while after that, and then they get to the tiny village where the Sage is waiting for them.

Bayek recognizes the face, the hair, the mismatched eyes—but this man is at least five years younger than him. The first Sage he met had been older.

"Bayek," the Sage says, with a loose grin. Despite sharing a face, the voice is different—his accent is unmistakably Greek, not Egyptian, and there's a cheerful cast to his features that had been missing in the first man. Still, he says, "I've been waiting for you."

"I was actually…" It's hard not to look at his eyes. "I was actually looking for somebody else. I think."

"No," he says. "You were looking for me. The Sage you met originally died a few months ago, but that's why I'm here. He taught me everything he knew about Sages before he died, and he told me what you need to do."

"Which is what, exactly?"

The Sage shakes his head and gestures for Bayek to make himself comfortable. "We have some background to get through first," he says. "It might take a while. See—there was another race of people on earth. Thousands of years ago."

"The gods," Bayek says.

"The _isu_ ," the Sage corrects. "They were… well, complicated, and I'm sure we'll get back to them later. But what you need to know right now is that they were _very_ smart. They had technologies that we can't even imagine now, and before they were wiped out they left… artifacts behind to try and guide humanity into an eventual outcome that they wanted."

Bayek frowns—skeptical, but a little curious, despite himself. "Tell me more."

So the Sage does. Over the course of the next several weeks, he tells Bayek a lot of things about the isu, about the pieces of eden they left behind, the apples and shrouds and staffs and keys. He tells him about the solar flare that's eventually going to come close to wiping humanity out. Bayek starts out skeptical, but the more he hears, the more it makes sense. These pieces of eden are exactly what the Order of the Ancients has been looking for, all this time. He's actually seen the effects of the so called apple for himself, and it's exactly as strange as what the Sage is telling him.

"So this is what the Sages do?" he asks, when all the explanations are finally over, and he and the Sage are sitting together over a low fire in the near darkness of a cloudy, starless night. "You… track people down and tell them about all this isu history?"

"No," the Sage says. "Not usually. I mean, we're sort of a mistake. One of the isu was trying to bring her dead husband back to life, and just… messed up a whole bunch of us. She couldn't bring him back, but we have his face and some of his… understanding. And as long as each Sage keeps reaching out to the next one, and teaching them what they know… we'll sort of have a purpose." He shrugs. "I mean, I just don't know how long that's going to last. I worry that someday we're going to lose it, and then what are we going to be? Just a group of odd looking men that know a little too much, and _understand_ nothing." He's staring into the fire. It only takes one lost Sage, and that unbroken chain of Sages going all the way back to the isu is broken, and then there's going to be no one left that knows how any of this works."

"I'm sure that won't happen," Bayek says, although he feels completely out of his depth making that claim.

"Someday," the Sage says. "But anyway, no. This isn't usually what we do. We need you for something, Bayek. And you're going to get your second chance."

Bayek hasn't forgotten that. "For Khemu," he says. "But that's… it's too late for me. There are no more children coming for me, Sage."

"No." The Sage grins. "But there is the Brotherhood."

It takes Bayek a second to figure out what he means. "The Hidden Ones?"

The Sage leans down to the dirt, and draws their symbol there in stark, clean lines. "Bayek," he says quietly. "Your Brotherhood that's going to last forever." A little chill goes through Bayek at those words. In almost the exact same way as he had looked at that first Sage in that isu temple, and _known_ that he was telling the truth, Bayek believes this Sage now. And to tell the honest truth, that scares him a little bit. He wants his Brotherhood to last, but forever is a long time. "Hundreds— _thousands_ —of brothers and sisters."

Bayek lets out a shaky little breath, letting that sink in.

"Remember that solar flare I told you about?"

Bayek nods, a little confused. "The one you said was going to happen in more than two thousand years?"

"That's the one," the Sage says. He's grinning and clearly enjoying this too much. "And Bayek, if they're going to stop it—stop it the _right_ way—they're going to need your help."

A moment of silence, then Bayek repeats, quietly, "Two _thousand_ years."

 **-/-**

 **I kind of like the idea of Sages as this like big group of people that are trying to preserve knowledge of the First Civilization, passing it down one Sage to the next, until at some point someone dropped the ball, and we got the useless and semi-malevolent Sages we've had ever since AC4. *Shrug* That, and Bayek needed someone to explain things to him.**

 **Anyway, I have a very, very vague idea of where this is going. I know it's going to involve Desmond and Layla eventually, because modern storyline for the win. But please have patience with me as I kind of careen forward with this story without any idea where it's going! Hopefully it'll be a fun ride.**


	2. Chapter 2

They need the apple, as the Sage insists the golden spheres are called (and, honestly, it's as good a name as any) before Bayek can start any travel through time, so they ride out from the Sage's tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and back toward where Bayek himself had left the apple.

"Why me?" Bayek asks, when they're halfway there. "It can't just be that I helped start the Hidden Ones, can it? I'm not the only one involved in that."

"Part of it is your bloodline," the Sage admitted.

"What's wrong with it?"

"I think you might be descended from the isu," the Sage said. "The way you and your eagle work together was a dead giveaway." He glances upward in the general direction of a few circling birds of prey, but Bayek shakes his head and gestures off in another direction, to were Senu is preoccupied with hunting. He's long since stopped questioning how exactly he and Senu work together. They just do, they fit, they work together like this is what they were _born_ to do it.

"The isu were connected to eagles?" he asks, looking to the Sage.

"They had other… I don't know. Senses. Like you do, with your Senu."

That's slightly concerning, but Bayek refuses to let it tarnish his link with Senu. That's special, and it has nothing to do with the isu. It's theirs. Instead, he steers the subject back to the reason of _why him._ "You said part of it was my bloodline," he says. "What's the rest of it?"

"It's you," the Sage says. "It's everything else. Do you think saving the world is going to be easy? Of course not—I have no idea how you're going to do it or what it's going to take. But I know that you've saved all of Egypt, Bayek. That seems like exactly the kind of person we want in the future, trying to help."

"There have been many people that did that though," Bayek says. "Saved Egypt—there have been pharaohs and generals and heroes that saved Egypt before—"

"No." He's laughing a little. "No, not like you, Bayek. I'm not going to argue that other men have marched their armies out before, and fought off invaders or whatever else—but Bayek, you literally walked the length and breadth of this country, and when you saved all of Egypt I mean that you saved every city, every village, every port, every field, one at a time. You saved all of Egypt, _individually_."

He's still laughing so much that Bayek grins, although he's a little uncomfortable with all that praise. He hadn't done anything more than what was right. "I hope you don't expect me to do that to the whole rest of the world, when I get to—when I'm in the future." As always, his tongue trips over the words, because as always, he can't totally make himself believe it. No matter how convincing the Sage is, no matter what magics he's seen from the apple already, two thousand years is a lot to wrap his mind around. "There's probably a few more people in the world than in Egypt, right? The planet's… I don't know how much bigger, but I'm sure it is large."

"Have you ever heard of a man named Eratosthenes?" the Sage asks, still smiling.

"No."

"He lived about 200 years ago. In Egypt. Very smart man, and he decided to calculate the distance all the way around the Earth." He pauses, possibly for dramatic effect.

"And?" Bayke prompts.

The Sage tells him, and the number is so much larger than Bayek had been expecting that at first he just laughs—it's not until he looks over that he realizes the other man had not, in fact, been joking. "That is a very large world," he says.

"With a lot of people in it," the Sage agrees. "Don't worry, Bayek, I'm sure you won't have to save _all_ of them one at a time." He spurs his horse on, a little faster, so that Bayek is left with just the echoes of his laughter as the younger man races on ahead. "Just stop the sun from burning it all up, yes?"

Bayek scowls, and spurs his horse after him.

-/-

The apple seems to hum in Bayek's hands when he's finally holding it again, a thin, persistent sensation that reminds him oddly of a purring cat. Bayek is surprised by how excited he feels to finally be holding it—this is it, this is the moment when he learns how he's going to travel in time. Assuming it really is possible. And this Sage isn't just… insane. And he's not insane for believing him.

"You're not going to want to head straight for the end of the world," the Sage says, watching the glow of the apple swell. Bayek can feel it sort of tugging at him, and he's not sure whether to fight it or give in. For the moment he fights, gritting his teeth and digging his heels in.

"Makes sense," he says. "I'd want to be a little bit before then, right? If I want to do any good?" He still has no idea what he's supposed to do, but he's spent days questioning the Sage on the way up here, which hadn't helped at all—the man hadn't been able to tell him any more about what exactly he's supposed to do, just that he'll have to figure it out when he gets there, and that if anyone can do it, he can.

"Aim for after," the Sage says.

" _After_?"

"She's there," the Sage says. "The woman that can help you."

"Who?"

"I… don't have a lot of answers for you, Bayek. I can't just stare into the future and see what's happening. I just… some stuff's been passed down from Sages before me, some of it comes all the way from the isu, and I don't _know_ what all of it means." He takes a breath, and in that moment looks very young. "I just don't like thinking about the end of the world, even if it isn't coming for another two thousand years."

Bayek stares at him for a second, processing that. Then he nods. He'd like to see the world not end as well. "It's okay," he assures the man. "I can handle this."

He's not entirely sure that he can, but it's worth it because he can _see_ the Sage relax when he says it. "Good luck," the Sage says.

And that's the sentiment that follows after him as Bayek finally loses the fight to resist the apple—it snaps at him, and the world just disintegrates. Bayek is falling through a dark space, and the apple is growing more brightly, and _this is it_. Bayek grins tightly as a course of excitement just shoots through him. This is time travel, and he's going into the future.

For a long moment there's no sound, and then Bayek hears Senu. He knows it's Senu's cry the same way he'd recognize Aya's voice, and he instinctively reaches out through their connection, straining to see what she sees. She's not here, is she? He should have thought of her before he ever picked the apple up, he should _never_ have tried this before making sure she'd be okay—

Their connection works, as instantly and smoothly as it always has. But this time, instead of being treated to an overhead view of Egypt, Bayek sees… time. It's indescribable, the way it looks, and Bayek only has a very vague idea of what he's looking at. He can sort of recognize the vague shape of his own life on the timeline, and with a slight sense of unease, he lets Senu carry on, flying forward for what feels like forever. He's just starting to worry about how he'll know when he gets to where he's supposed to be, when he sees it. A bright slash through the timeline that makes Senu's feathers stand on end. Dimly, Bayek can feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising in unison. There. That's where they're going.

Senu spirals downward, coming in for a landing just a little past the end of the world, just the same way she would if they were landing from a normal flight. As she gets close, Bayek returns to his own body—for a second he's still falling through that same blackness, and then abruptly it ends. He's in an old tomb somewhere, half covered in sand as the desert tries to reclaim whoever's been buried here. That much is familiar, but there are odd items scattered here and there whose purpose Bayek can't begin to guess, mostly connected by thick black strings.

The apple's glow fades, and Bayek takes a second to tuck it away in a pouch before he takes a step forward, curious. It's odd to see something as familiar as a sarcophagus right next to all these unknown items. He's just realizing that he's not alone in this cave, there's someone sitting at a table, hunched over it and staring at something, when Senu shrieks and comes flying into the cave. She lands on Bayek's shoulder and shrieks at him, so clearly offended that Bayek forgets where he is and laughs. He should really know better than to try and travel through time without her—next time he'll know.

The sound is enough to attract the attention of the person a the table, and Bayek's smile fades as she turns and jumps to her feet. It's a woman, dressed in clothes so strange Bayek doesn't even have the words to describe them, and she's staring at him like she's just seen a ghost.

 _"Bayek,_ " she says.

"You know my name," he says, not even surprised at this point. She's silent, just staring at him, so Bayek presses on. "Can I have yours?"

She swallows. "Layla. Layla Hassan." She stares for another second, then actually shakes her head, trying to deny _something_ to herself. "How can you…?" She strides forward, and Bayek raises his eyebrows at her as she reaches a hand out and just touches his shoulder. "You're real."

"Yes."

She slides easily into another language for a second, ranting in apparent shock, then turns back to him, and speaks again in Egyptian. "You've been dead for two thousand years," she tells him. "You know that? You know you shouldn't even _be_ here?"

"Then I guess that means it worked," Bayek says, as if he _definitely_ knew what was going on, and was not still confused, and had a real, actual plan for what to do next.

Senu shrieks again, and flaps her wings just enough to clip the side of his head, because she knows him better than that.

 **-/-**

 **Bayek is so hard to get into time travel. xD I feel like with anyone else they can just pick up a piece of Eden and just get zapped into another timeline, and they're like 'argh, curse these pieces of Eden, they're always doing weird things like this! Oh well, guess I better just accept it and get on with the plot!' And Bayek just has 0 idea what's going on or what pieces of Eden are, and he needs soooo much more buildup...**

 **But anyway, he knows how to do it now, and next chapter will have Layla freaking out so that should be fun.**

 **If you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me, if you're not, then-I guess I have nothing to say to you, because you're not reading this :)**


	3. Chapter 3

If Dee were alive, and here, and seeing this, she'd be shouting at Layla about the bleeding effect and the animus and how things have clearly gone too far, because Bayek of Siwa is standing an arm's length away and that clearly isn't possible.

"But you are here," Layla says, as much to herself as to Bayek, as much to make sense of this to herself as to communicate. "So it must be possible, and things are still completely under control."

She can almost _hear_ Dee telling her off for being arrogant enough to think this is real, and that she's not just bleeding. But Layla _knows_ this is real—there's no way a hallucination could possibly look as real as Bayek does, and Layla touches him once just to see.

"You time traveled here on purpose," she accuses, and can barely believe that those words just came out of her mouth. She pauses like she's just been slapped, and reels back as she tries to wrap her mind around it all.

"Yes," Bayek agrees. He's looking at her thoughtfully, almost considering, and it's weirdly disorienting not to know exactly what he's thinking.

"To _here_ ," Layla says.

"Well," Bayek says. "Yes."

Layla wants to ask if it's because of her—she wants it to be because of her, because he somehow knew she'd know him, but the question dies at the last minute, before she can ask it, and instead she says, "Because your mummy is here?"

That's the only thing so far that's managed to surprise him so far. Bayek's eyes go wide for a second, and Layla can almost see the dots connecting in his mind as he turns to the stone tomb that Layla had cracked open to get at his DNA. But if he didn't know that this is his tomb, why _is_ he here?

Is it her?

"Layla!"

"Shit," she mutters. William had been outside, packing the last of their stuff into the car while Layla wipes the computer of anything that's too dangerous to risk taking with them. He must have gotten concerned (or annoyed) by how long she's taking to finish. "Just a minute!" she yells back at him.

"We don't have too many to spare," he says pointedly, but the man that founded the Assassins is standing three feet away from her, and she's still too busy gaping at him to actually ask why. She shakes her head and takes a step toward Bayek, who is now justifiably distracted by the sight of his own corpse.

"Hey," she says. "Listen, can we have this conversation now? You seem like you meant to come here but maybe you didn't know where here is?" It was just a guess, but Bayek nodded so Layla hurtled on. "We're actually just about to leave, so there's not much time—"

"We?" Bayek echoes. "Who else is here? And who exactly are _you_ , Layla?"

Layla gives him a tight smile, because there are so many layers to that answer, honestly, and _I'm the person in your head_ is going to take way too much time to explain right now. "I'm one of the good ones," she assures him, and for the first time in her life she knows it's absolutely true. "Now come on. There's Templars after us, and we don't have that much time before they show up."

"Templars." His voice is somewhere between pleasantly amused and flat out confused. Layla could have slapped herself, because of course the Templars as an idea or a _word_ until a literal millennium after Bayek's life, and they don't have time for that right now.

"They will try and kill us," she says, going for the explanation that's as simple as possible. "There are a lot of them, and before you showed up, we were trying to get out of here."

Bayek's mouth twitches into a kind of smile. "So I guess somethings don't change?"

It takes Layla by surprise, but after a second she grins back. "Nope."

"Layla!" William shouts again from outside the cave, exactly on cue. "What are you doing down there? We're on a time limit here, remember?"

"Come on," Layla says, prodding at Bayek. "We might as well get this over with." And to be honest, she would sort of appreciate some help figuring out what exactly is going on here."

Bayek gives his tomb one last, unreadable look, then obligingly follows Layla out to the front of the cave. They emerge into the silence side by side, both blinking against the sudden light. Senu flies off with a shriek, circling Bayek for a few seconds before flying off. Layla is only vaguely aware of the eagle, more focused on William.

"Well," she says, carefully controlling her tone. "Here we are."

His expression speaks volumes on the sheer, dumbfounded shock he must be feeling right now, and as a nice side effect, removes any possible doubt about Bayek possibly being a figment of the bleeding effect from Layla's mind.

"I think we need to have a serious conversation," he says, after a pause.

-/-

They spend the rest of the day and the following night driving to a small town nearby, and then holing up in a rundown hotel. Bayek is visibly curious about everything, which Layla can understand, but Senu is clearly disgusted by the town and the highways around it. Poor bird really doesn't deserve all this urban blight.

Bayek tells them about the Sages and his badly defined mission to save the world from a solar flare. William—in a terse, clipped tone—spells out what his son Desmond had done to stop the sun from burning the world up, and how that same decision had killed him, and loosed Juno on the world.

Layla, for her part, spends most of the day translating back and forth between Egyptian and English. Both men have a fairly impressive range of languages, but there's no overlap at all between them. Layla isn't exactly a linguistic expert, but she feels pretty safe assuming that even the languages that still exist today from Bayek's time—Greek, for example—are going to be a lot different than what he might recognize.

So for now, thanks to the animus, Layla serves as translator. Maybe the only possible translator, because who else is going to learn any of those old languages?

"So what do we do now?" Layla asks. Her question is in Egyptian because she inherently trusts Bayek more than William.

The ancient Assassin is standing by the window, watching cars speed past on the road outside. He's turned away, so Layla can't see his face, and she wonders what he's thinking right now. Is he regretting coming here? She wouldn't blame him—this is a far cry from _his_ Egypt.

But then, after a few seconds, Bayek straightens up and turns to look at him. There's an intensity to his expression that reassures her. "It sounds like the problem is that Desmond had to make a choice," he says. "Between letting the world burn, or letting this Juno run free."

"That's about it," Layla says, crossing her arms and adopting a serious expression. She's trying to make it sound like she knew about this all along, but the truth is most of it's new to her, too. She's never heard of Juno until just now, but the way William talks about her makes Layla definitely nervous.

"So we need a third option," Bayek says. "A way to stop the world from burning without letting Juno get free." He nods, apparently decided, and ready to charge into action. "We need more information."

"Layla," William interrupts.

"What?" She tears her gaze away from Bayek to look back at the older man.

"What's he saying?"

She sighs, and pushes down the urge to tell him to just learn Ancient Egyptian, because it's not like that's realistic. This is going to get really old, isn't it? She summarizes as quickly as she can, then turns back to Bayek to continue their conversation. Before she can even get a single word out, William says, "You should see him."

"Sorry," Layla says, annoyance mounting at the second interruption. " _What_?"

"He's right," William says. "He needs more information, and whatever happens, the two of you are going to have to see what happened that day. That's the moment that needs to change, isn't it? I can tell you everything there is to know about the day the world almost burned and Juno escaped the Temple, but if you don't see it for yourself, you're never going to really understand."

Layla hesitates. Half because it's a good idea, and she's trying to wrap her head around the possible implications, and half because William seems to be suggesting that Bayek take her with him while he travels back in time. And sure, it'd only be about five years, but if they can do that, why couldn't they do _more_?

They absolutely have to give this a shot.

Layla turns back to Bayek and gives him a summary of what William had just said. She can't help putting a little bit of emphasis on the suggestion that she should go with him, if she can. He follows her, nodding, then reaches into a pouch at his waist and pulls out the apple. "Alright," he says, as calmly as if they'd been talking about walking down the street for groceries. "I don't know if I _can_ bring you with me, but I don't see why we shouldn't try." He frowns suddenly. "And I want to see if I can get a look at this Juno for myself."

"Alright," Layla says.

"Alright," Bayek echoes.

Layla glances at William. "We're going to give it a try," she says. "Do you want to—"

"No," William says, cutting her off almost at once. "I don't want to see that happen again."

That's fair enough. Layla gives him an awkward nod, and takes a deep breath as she turns to Bayek. For a second the two of them just stand there in silence, considering each other. Then Bayek reaches out with the arm that isn't holding the apple, and Senu flies in through the open window to perch there. Layla steps closer as well, following a vague instinct as the apple starts to glow. Then it sweeps them all up, her and Bayek and Senu, and the three of them are suddenly flying through time.

 **-/-**

 **Big thank you to everyone that fave'd/followed/reviewed. Thank you for sticking with me while I poke around with Bayek and Layla. :)**

 **Next chapter: Probably Desmond, probably Juno, probably problems**


	4. Chapter 4

Right away, Bayek can feel the difference. Traveling through time with Layla isn't the same as traveling alone—or with just Senu, technically. Now it's like there's something between him and Layla, tying them together like a boat moored at a dock. Good. At least he won't have to worry about losing her in a different century.

"This is it?" Layla asks, and her voice sounds very small—there's nothing around for her words to bounce off of, and the empty space around them seems to eat her question.

"Just be patient," Bayek tells her, already reaching out to connect with Senu. The blazing golden timeline stretches out below him again, just as it had the first time he did this. This time, Bayek directs Senu straight into the glowing mark on time that shows where the sun had nearly destroyed everything. It's a move that's as much instinct as anything else, entrusting that they will find the exact right moment, that they will find Desmond, that they won't be too early or too late, that they won't appear in the wrong place or separated from each other.

Senu shrieks, the sound carrying in a way that it hadn't when Bayek and Layla had tried to talk. It seems to echo and reverberate, and as always Bayek draws strength from his eagle. He hears a second shriek, this one human and surprised, and when he blinks away Senu's view, he sees that they're somewhere else. A cave, somewhere cold—Bayek can feel goosebumps rising on his arms—with traces of the same inhuman architecture he's seen in some of the old tombs back home. It looks older here, half falling down, and Bayek reminds himself that all these ruins are two thousand years older than what he's used to.

"Are you alright?" he asks, turning to Layla. She looks fine, but there's no one else around so she must have been the one that shrieked.

Sure enough, her face is bright red, and her posture is almost daring him to say anything. "I'm fine," she says. "Just surprised."

Bayek gives her a quick look anyway, just to make sure that she really is as fine as she claims to be. He barely knows anything about Layla, and he has no idea how she's going to react to a shock like this one—it's not unreasonable to want to be sure she'll hold her nerve.

"Look," Layla says, shaking off her surprise and pointing. "Bayek…"

He follows her finger and feels something cold grip at him as he sees the crumpled body on the floor nearby, and the flickering golden silhouette standing over him. In some ways, Bayek is still scrambling to catch up with everything that's going on here, but in other ways… well, it's not hard to guess who these two are.

Desmond.

And Juno.

Bayek and Layla share a wordless look, then take off running toward the two. Bayek drops to his knees next to Desmond, while Layla has eyes only for Juno. He's taller, and a little more used to running than Layla is, so he gets there several seconds earlier. Maybe he should be more concerned with Juno, but it's hard to ignore the sight of someone dying in front of him. Desmond is a still lump on the floor, his left hand charred horribly—Bayek can still smell the stench of burning skin, and his stomach churns. He's still crouched over Desmond when Layla catches up, standing between Bayek and Juno.

Bayek tenses, watching her—he doesn't know what Layla is capable of, and he's not even sure if she can fight. If Juno really is as much of a threat as William had implied, this could get unpleasant.

Juno's face is a shifting collection of golden lines, and her expression is hard to read, but Bayek thinks he sees surprise there. More than surprise, really, but he might be imagining her shock. "You are not supposed to be here," she says, voice flat. It does not echo the way it should in this wide open space, but somehow the sound of her voice fills the area anyway. The hairs on the back of Bayek's neck stand on end, and he shifts, very carefully. This half-transparent woman, looming over them, has a presence that Bayek doesn't like. She _seems_ dangerous.

" _You're_ not supposed to be here," Layla says, with too much aggression in her voice. Bayek can see Juno's expression twisting into one of disdain, and he wants to warn Layla to stay quiet. They're not here for a confrontation. "We've heard about you, and you should have been dead a long time ago.

"Let me look at you," Juno says. She seems almost amused. "Both of you." She doesn't so much walk toward the two of them as float, like she's only half real. "A man far from home," she says, gaze resting on Bayek for a moment before flicking to Layla. "And a little girl with a temper. What exactly do either of you think you're going to do?"

The question hangs heavy in the air, and for a second Bayek isn't sure what to say. Layla's forced silence reminds him of what he'd seen the apple do back by Siwa, and something in him hardens. This is wrong, all wrong, and he might not know a way to stop Juno _yet_ , but he really wants to figure it out. "We're going to hurt you," he says, speaking up, emphasizing each word. Unlike when Layla had translated for William, Bayek can understand everything Juno says—it feels like she's pounding the words right into his skull, in a way that bypasses language completely. But Bayek isn't sure if it works both ways, and he doesn't know for sure if Juno will be able to hear and understand him.

He shouldn't have worried. As soon as Bayek speaks, Juno turns all her attention to him—and the _force_ of it, the _strength_ of her anger and derision….

Well, Bayek is pretty sure she must know what he's saying.

"You will not hurt me," she says. "You? A pair of useless humans?" Her tone is so dismissive that it doesn't even come across as an insult. She's not trying to hurt them, she just genuinely doesn't seem to see them as _worth_ anything.

"Yes," Layla says. She looks pissed, and when Juno glances over at her, she actually laughs.

 _"No_ ," she says, and fades away, like dust being blown away on the wind.

"Okay," Layla says, and her face has actually turned red from anger. "I do not like her."

Bayek nods. From what Layla had passed on to him from William Miles, and just the… sheer malice in her face, her voice, her posture, her _everything_ , it's enough to convince him that this Juno is going to be a problem. She reminds him in a way of the Order that he's chased all across Egypt. Juno has the same kind of malice and casual disdain that the Order's members had shown.

"She must still be around here somewhere," Layla says, looking around. "I'm going to go investigate. I don't like not knowing where she is."

"Just be careful," Bayek says. "We don't know what she can do."

"She's just a bunch of light," Layla says. She doesn't sound convinced. "She can't even touch me."

"That's why I'm worried," Bayek says. "If she can't touch us, it just means she's going to find some other way to hurt us, and if it's anything like what I saw in Siwa with the apple, I'm not sure if it's something you'll be able to protect yourself against."

Layla hesitates, then nods. "I'll be careful."

She starts to scour the immediate area, and Bayek turns back to Desmond. He knows he should be helping Layla look for Juno, but something makes him pause, and take a second look at Desmond. It's a good thing, too, because if he hadn't been looking, he never would have seen Desmond's mouth open slightly, and he never would have heard the thin rattle as Desmond tries to suck in a breath.

A jolt of adrenaline rocks through Bayek—he's always found it easier to motivate himself when he's trying to _save_ someone—and he shouts out to Layla. "He's still alive!"

"What?" she shouts back, from halfway across the room.

"Desmond," Bayek says. "He's breathing." He stands, still sort of crouching over the dying man, and reaches into his pouch for the apple. "We need to get him out of here, to his father or someone that can help him."

"But what about Juno?" Layla asks. "I'm sorry, Bayek, but Desmond died here. It's history now, it happened, and we need to stop Juno before she does anything else—"

"We can travel in time," Bayek says. "We're here to change history, and I want to start with saving him." He has the apple in his hand now, but he stops and looks up at Layla before making another move. "You're right about Juno, though, we can't just leave her." They are supposed to be figuring out a way to stop her after all, and they still need a lot more information if they want to figure out what Juno's after and how to stop her. "You should stay here, Layla. Learn what you can while I try and get Desmond somewhere he can get help. Then I'll come back here and get you."

"You won't even be able to talk to anyone," Layla says.

"And you can't use the apple, as far as we know," Bayek says. "And we don't have time to find out, so…" He glances back at Desmond, waiting far too long before he sees another struggling breath. "Maybe you're right and this isn't going to work, but it's worth trying."

Layla gives him a crooked grin. "You're too nice, Bayek. Come back."

Bayek nods, and lets the apple carry him and Desmond into the time stream.

 **-/-**

 ***agonized noises* I was hoping to get to Desmond this chapter, but noooope, Juno had to muscle her way in there and take up alllll the space.**

 **Next chapter :p**


	5. Chapter 5

Traveling through time with Desmond is nothing like traveling with Layla. As soon as they're out of the temple and back in that gray in between space, Bayek realizes there's something wrong. Desmond is… he's not _solid_ somehow, he's like smoke slipping away from Bayek.

He's dying.

Bayek had known it before, of course, but now it's really coming home to him—there's almost nothing left of Desmond. He pulls at the dying man's spirit, trying to tie him close. He can feel a kind of creeping panic edging over him. Ever since he lost Khemu, he's had a _thing_ about saving people. He's always tried to help people, of course. He was trained as a Medjay, to help people, but it wasn't until he lost his son that it really came home to him how much it hurts when someone can't be saved.

And the upshot of it all is that he's not going to just let Desmond die.

"Senu!" His eagle spirals down toward him, to where Bayek is struggling just to keep Desmond with him. "Senu, we need somewhere safe to land, right? We need a time that can get some help for him." And maybe Layla had a point, about how hard it's going to be for him to find that help when he can't even talk to people. He could always try taking Desmond all the way back to _his_ time, to Egypt, but Bayek isn't honestly sure Desmond's going to last through a trip that's technically two thousand years long. They need something closer, so Bayek puts his trust in Senu. She's always been able to find whoever or whatever he's looking for, no matter how hard they try to hide themselves.

Sure enough, no sooner has Bayek asked for her help, than Senu is diving straight down, toward a point on the timeline that's not very far at all from where they'd picked Desmond up in the first place. Bayek follows, without hesitation, and in a moment they're landing back in the real world.

The first thing Bayek notices is that Desmond… hasn't come through correctly. He's still that same, insubstantial half-spirit, and for a second that's all Bayek can take in. He's not going to be able to save him, and he'd left Layla behind in that cave with Juno for no good reason.

No. _No._ Bayek takes a breath and looks around. He's seen so many impossible things today already that he's not ready to write anything off as impossible. There has to be something he can do—if nothing else, he trusts that Senu brought him here for a reason.

He's in a small room, crammed full of _stuff_ , most of it unrecognizable to Bayek. There are boxes and piles of things in every corner, and only a small and dirty window to let in light. And on the far end, a bed—Bayek walks closer, and sees that there's someone lying in it, fast asleep. It's not until Bayek is practically on top of the bed that he sees there's someone lying in it, and he starts to understand why Senu has led him here.

Its Desmond lying in the bed. A slightly younger Desmond, one who doesn't look quite so worn as the one Bayek had seen in the Temple. Bayek looks between the Desmond lying on the bed, and the dying spirit he's brought from the temple. It's a guess, really. He doesn't know if it will work. He doesn't know if it's possible. But Desmond is fading fast, and there's really no other choice but to try.

Bayek takes a step forward, sort of trying to guide Desmond's spirit back toward his body. He watches, holding his breath, as the smoky half-form of Desmond's spirit comes close to his body. It seems to hover there for a moment before sinking down and vanishing. For a second there's just silence, and then Desmond's eyes fly open.

-/-

Desmond is only vaguely aware of what's been happening to him since he touched the Eye in the Temple. He remembers falling, and a horrible, necrotic sort of weakness crawling over him, making it harder and harder to just keep breathing, much less keeping track of anything else going on around him.

Then there had been people there. Juno for one, and then a couple of strangers speaking a language Desmond doesn't recognize at all. And then… he has no words for the odd sensation of being disembodied, of traveling, until finally he opens his eyes, and he just feels… fine.

He sits up, slowly, aware that someone else is in the room with him, and realizes with a shock that he's back in his shoebox of an apartment, in New York. Like nothing had ever happened. Like the Assassins, the pieces of Eden, all of it, had just been a dream. Desmond reaches over to the crate he'd brought up months ago to use as a kind of bedside table, and grabs at his phone, checking the date.

February 4, 2012. Before Abstergo. He's gone back in time.

Finally, Desmond looks back over at the man standing over at his bed. He's dressed in loose clothing that looks completely out of place in midwinter New York City, and Desmond notices the white fabric pulled up over his forehead like a hood, and the Assassin's symbol at his waist. Bizarrely, there's an eagle resting on the man's shoulder. Desmond stares for a second, then shakes that off.

"Did you do this for me?" he asks, standing on shaky legs. His head is spinning, and he has no idea how he could be here, back before it all started. "Did you… _how_?"

The man answers, but in a language Desmond doesn't understand. So he tries again, cycling through a few languages he's picked up from the bleeding effect in the animus, as the stranger struggles through a few languages of his own. Desmond finally settles on Ezio's Italian when he realizes the stranger knows a little bit of what sounds like Latin. It's not enough to have a conversation, but with a little bit of struggle, and some enthusiastic gesturing, they can get the gist of what they're trying to say to each other.

Still, it takes Desmond a little while to wrap his head around what the man—he's _pretty_ sure his name is Bayek, but the language barrier makes everything harder than it needs to be—is telling him. He gets something about time, and after kind of coming at it from a couple different angles to try and make sure they're on the same page, he's almost positive they're talking about time travel. Bayek's traveled through time to save his life.

And, judging from his grin, he's pretty happy to see Desmond's still alive.

Desmond makes a couple more stabs at conversation, trying to figure out how exactly the time travel had worked, but their shared vocabulary just doesn't stretch that far. Bayek pulls out an apple and seems to indicate that he'd somehow used that, which is kind of weird. Desmond has never heard of them doing anything like that, but then again he's never heard of _anything_ letting people travel through time. An apple probably makes more sense than anything else. He thinks about the apple he'd left back in the temple, the one they'd used to unlock it and get inside in the first place, and wonders if that could do the same kind of thing.

"Desmond," Bayek says, pulling him back out of his thoughts. " _Bene_?"

In Italian that's something like _good, ok, well_ , _fine_ —and Desmond is more than ok, he's better than fine. He'd gotten caught in the crossfire between two precursors and almost died because of it. Then this total stranger had come travelling through time to save him, and now Desmond is back at the beginning, with a chance to do… well, to do anything. His head is still sort of spinning, and it hasn't completely sunk in that he can change things now, he can do it over but better this time.

"I—yea, _bene_ , _molto bene_ , you… " He doesn't want to risk Bayek misunderstanding him, and this language thing is driving him crazy already. So he kind of leans forward, intending to just kind of put his hand on Bayek's shoulder, to sort of try and show him the overwhelming wash of emotions going through him at the moment. But then it just kind of hits him all over again that he could be dead right now, and he sort of instinctively just hugs Bayek. _"Grazie."_

Bayek claps him on the back, and Desmond's pretty sure he understands him. So that's good. He steps back, wiping at his suddenly wet eyes, feeling grateful just to be alive.

-/-

Layla watches as Bayek vanishes with the apple, frowning. There's… _something_ of Desmond that seems to go with him, a kind of vapor or smoke (she's trying really hard not to think _ghost_ , because that seems like just one weird thing too much to cope with today). But then… when Bayek is gone, Layla watches Desmond's actual body go limp, and she thinks nope that is definitely a dead man, and Bayek is going to be so upset when he realizes he couldn't save him.

Unless... she shifts uncomfortably, thinking about ghosts. Is that Desmond's spirit that Bayek had taken with him? And then that would just be his body here, left to die without Desmond's... soul, or whatever. Layla feels goosebumps break out all along her arms, and rubs at them nervously. Still, if there's anyone that could find a way to save Desmond based on that, she completely believes that it would be Bayek.

Layla forces herself to stop thinking about spirits and ghosts. After all, she's not supposed to be the one worrying about Desmond—that's Bayek's job. Her job is to track down Juno, and figure out what is going on with that creep. So—trying not to look at Desmond's body—she starts to explore. It's a little weird, honestly. It's pretty clear that whoever had been here with Desmond has left in a hurry. There are still computers set up wherever there's room for them, still sleeping bags set up in a corner, still odds and ends scattered everywhere.

It really reminds her of Bayek's tomb, where she'd set up her own animus. It has the same kind of feeling to it, of squatting temporarily in something much more old. Because this place? Yea, _definitely_ ancient. Older than Bayek's tomb for sure, and probably as old as Juno and her people. And speaking of Juno…

Layla stops close to one of the computers, lingering over what looks like an apple just like Bayek's. There's this, there's the inhuman architecture all over the place, there's signs of Juno's people _everywhere_ , there's just no sign of Juno herself. Layla frowns, and thinks about shouting out for her. She's not sure if that'll actually do anything, but she's starting to feel impatient. And at least an argument with Juno would give her something to do while she waits for Bayek to get back.

The thought has only just crossed her mind, when she suddenly hears voices—a _lot_ of voices, and hurrying footsteps. Layla glances around, looking for a hiding place, and dashes off to a side of the cave. The walls are a little cracked and broken here, and Layla just manages to tuck herself into a crevice before a crowd of about half a dozen people descends on the abandoned work area. Abstergo, if the logos stitched on their clothes and plastered on their equipment is anything to go by. Layla scans their faces anxiously, craning her head out of her hiding place a little bit to get a better look, and she's relieved when she doesn't recognize any of them. That would have been awkward to explain.

The Abstergo workers spread out, methodically working their way across the open space. Two of them spot Desmond's body and make a beeline for it—judging by the snatches of conversation Layla manages to overhear, they're doing an autopsy on him, right here and now. Bayek is _really_ not going to be happy about that.

Time passes. No one notices Layla in her hiding spot, but they're sort of edging in her general direction, and Layla realizes they're going to get to her eventually. She's going to have to find a way out of here before then, and worry about making sure Bayek can find her after that. She leans out again, looking for a way out, and her breath catches when she spots something else.

Juno.

She's standing in front of the apple Layla had been looking at earlier, and none of the Abstergo agents are looking in the right direction to see her. So Layla's the only one that sees her as she reaches out to the apple, and rests her hand on it. The apple seems to pulse, flaring briefly before fading, light and energy pouring out of it and apparently _into_ Juno. The process is quick, only ten or fifteen seconds, but when it's done the apple looks dull and drained, and Juno looks—not quite solid, but somehow more present than she had a moment ago, and there's a triumphant smile on her face that sends a chill down Layla's spine.

Bayek, a human, had been able to pick up an apple and use it to travel two thousand years into the future. Layla has no idea what Juno—one of the people that had apparently _made_ the apples—can do with it, but she has a sick feeling she's about to find out.

And she really doesn't think she's going to like it.

 **-/-**

 **I'm never 100% sure what to do with Juno, because I feel like Ubi hasn't 100% decided what to do with her in the games. But I feel like Bayek and friends need a really good villain to go against as they travel around in time, so I decided to go ahead and make Juno a little more of a threat. Next chapter, we find out why Juno+apple=bad, bad news.**

 **In the meantime, enjoy Desmond and Bayek hugs. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Juno's just standing there, in the middle of the temple, with the power from the apple sort of lighting her up from the inside, when one of the Abstergo agents finally turns around and notices her. He curses, dropping what he'd been working on with a loud crash, which of course makes everyone else stop what they're doing to see what's wrong. Layla knows she should duck out of sight, but she feels frozen in place, craning to see what's going to happen next. Juno's not exactly being subtle, and something about her smile—her _smirk_ —makes Layla nervous.

The man that had first noticed Juno is fumbling for something on his belt, and eventually manages to pull a gun from a side holster and point it at her. "Stop right there!" he says, his voice surprisingly authoritative considering how badly his hands are shaking. "Stop right there, or I'll shoot!"

Juno ignores the command, as Layla had expected her to, and instead moves toward that man. He squeezes off two quick shots, which hit her square in the chest. They're good shots, but they pass right through and hit the wall behind Juno without leaving so much as a mark.

"You poor, foolish human," she says, without the slightest trace of empathy in her voice. "You're not even important. You're not even a footnote in history—you could die right here and it wouldn't even matter. None of you would."

A second Abstergo agent pulls a gun, and fires as well, which turns out to be a pretty stupid move—not only should he already know that it's not going to work, but when the bullets pass right through Juno, they hit one of the other men standing on her other side. He falls, clutching at his shoulder and cursing out his friend.

From where she's hiding, Layla can just barely see the disdainful look she gives the man that had shot his friend. "You don't have to make things quite so easy for me, you know," she says.

The man that had shot his friend lowers his gun, shaking a little. They all look terrified, to be honest, they look like they're trying to disappear into the walls or wondering if they'll be able to make a run for the exit. "What _are_ you?" he breathes.

"I am something much better than human," she says. "And none of you matters right now. You're not the ones I need to talk to. _Leave. Tell no one what happened._ " She waves a dismissive hand, and Layla is a little surprised to see every single one of the Abstergo men bolt for the cave exit together. Even the one that was shot. Maybe they're just smarter than they look, or maybe… well, there's something a little odd about the way Juno had told them to go.

Then Juno turns, and Layla freezes as she realizes she's crept a little too far out of her hiding place to see what's going on—Juno's looking right at her.

Well, crap. There's nowhere to run and her hiding spot is pretty much blown now. Layla schools her expression into something that (hopefully) won't look scared or upset at all. She's aiming for bored, but isn't sure how successful she is. She and Juno study each other for a minute, then Juno says, "Where's the other one?"

"Gone," Layla says, crossing her arms.

"Traveled somewhere else in time?" Juno asks, and even though Layla doesn't answer, Juno nods. "Well, I have a message for you to take to him."

Layla eyes her suspiciously for a second, not sure why Juno's being so open. But this is what they want, isn't it? Information about what Juno's after? "Go on," she says warily.

Juno walks closer, and Layla stubbornly stands her ground. "Do you know what these… these _apples_ , as you call them, were made to do?"

"No."

"Tens of thousands of years ago," Juno says. "When you humans were our slaves, they were designed to keep our slaves in line." Layla bristles at the word _slaves_ , but judging by Juno's smile, that's exactly the reaction she's hoping for. "Over time we added more functions to it." The time travel, Layla thinks. And who knows how many other weird things she doesn't know about? "And I've had a lot of time to think," Juno says. "And to plan. Seventy thousand years to figure out the best way to use all that." She holds out an arm, glowing and pulsing with that golden light.

"And you decided to eat it," Layla says, referring to how Juno had absorbed the energy from the apple earlier.

Juno's smug pride is so obvious, Layla can practically feel it in the air between them. "Put it however you want," she says. "The point is, I can do those things the _apple_ can do, without needing to carry an apple around to do it with. And I'm not stopping here. There are other apples, scattered all over the world, all across time, and the more of those I absorb the stronger I will get. So whatever _your_ plan is, whatever reason you have for running around through time, don't think for a second that you're going to be able to stop me."

Layla stares for a second. And then she smiles, because clearly Juno doesn't know everything—which is fair enough, Layla and Bayek are just running as fast as they can and trying to figure out what to do as they go along. And more importantly, Juno is giving her this warning instead of just reaching out and striking her dead, or whatever. So no matter how powerful Juno might claim to be, she does have her limits. At least for now. Layla isn't sure she likes the way Juno talks about absorbing more apples and getting more powerful.

But she doesn't say any of that, of course. Instead, pushing down a vague feeling of revulsion, she thrusts an arm out and straight through Juno's stomach. It feels like plunging her hand into freezing water. "Funny," she says. "Because you can claim to be as powerful as you want, but you literally can't even touch me, can you?"

Juno's smile vanishes abruptly. "You think I can't hurt you?" she hisses, and her golden light flashes and flares up, and when Juno speaks again there's an air of something… _more_ in her voice. Power. _"Fear me,"_ Juno says, leaning forward toward Layla, eyes glittering with disdain. Her voice has that same powerful quality Layla had heard when Juno ordered the Abstergo men out of the cave, only this time it's directed at Layla.

Even though Layla is half braced for it, she can't help the wild spike of adrenaline that surges through her. She's barely thinking as she stumbles back, heart pounding, and runs for the cave entrance. She's almost made it, she can actually _see_ daylight in front of her when she feels a hand close around her forearm. Layla's heart almost stops and she lashes out without thinking.

"Layla! Layla, stop. Calm down."

It's Bayek's voice, which is way better than Juno catching her but it doesn't calm the fear.

"Bayek," Layla says, swinging around to face him. He'd come back for her, he'd come _back_ , just like he'd promised. "We need to get out of here, okay? Doesn't matter when, we just need to—"

"Layla…"

"Bayek!"

She must look absolutely panicked, because he studies her for a second, then nods. "Alright," he says. "Hold on."

She's only too happy to grab his arm as he takes out the apple and pulls them out of time, and she doesn't let go again until they've landed somewhere and somewhen else. A small, dark studio apartment in some big city—Layla can hear the sounds of traffic and people through the grimy window.

"Sit down," Bayek says, and guides her onto the rickety bed. "Breathe. Tell me what happened."

Layla takes her time with the first two parts, just sitting and breathing for several seconds before she's able to actually explain to Bayek what happened. With Juno gone, the fear is slowly trickling away, and Layla can't help feeling a little ashamed of her reaction. She just hadn't been able to _help_ herself.

"You okay?" a second voice asks. "Um… do you speak English?"

Layla looks up, past Bayek, and stares when she sees Desmond standing there, looking totally healthy. "You're supposed to be dead," she says.

"Guess that's a yes to the English question," Desmond mutters. "Uh—yea. I don't exactly know what happened, there's kind of a whole language thing here." He gestures to Bayek. "But I guess he saved me, he brought me back to my old life, just kind of brought me back in time stuck me here—it's February, by the way."

"What year?"

"2012," Desmond says, and Layla nods. He doesn't look that much younger than he had in that cave.

"Layla," Bayek prompts, drawing her attention back onto him. "What happened?"

Right. She's going to have to explain her terrified reaction. Reluctantly, Layla gives him the full story. Then, when Desmond looks like he's about to burst from wanting to ask questions, she repeats the whole thing for him.

"Shit," Desmond mutters. "If she can just do all that stuff with the apple—and she's _absorbing_ them, so it's not like we can steal it back from her. And she said she was going to get _more_?"

"Yea," Layla says glumly. She's starting to realize exactly how bad that is, and she doesn't like it. If Juno could hijack her mind and send her running in terror with just one apple, who knows what she could do if she gets more?

"Well then we have to stop her, right?" Desmond says. "Listen, I don't know where every piece of Eden—"

"Every what?" Layla interrupts.

"Uh—the apples, and all the other artifacts. We call them pieces of Eden. But anyway, I don't know where every single one is, but I've been in the animus for almost a year tracking some of them down. If we can go back in time, we could get them before she does. And I bet we can still track down more."

Layla takes her time thinking it over as she repeats all that to Bayek.

"I think he's right," Bayek admits. "I think we need to do anything we can to stop her from getting more apples. And in the long run, we need to see if we can change things to stop her from getting out of that cave at all."

"Yea," Layla says, taking a deep breath. "Yea, it's just… that's kind of a big deal, right?" She looks around at the three of them. An ancient Egyptian, a man that _should_ be dead, and her. Layla isn't entirely sure they can do this. Bayek and Desmond can't even talk to each other.

They can't do this. There's no way they can _possibly_ do this.

Layla drops her gaze, staring at her hands in her lap. They're shaking slightly, and she presses them between her knees, clenching them tight to try and get rid of the tremble. She's always been bad at showing weakness, and the two men seem weirdly calm about this whole thing. Maybe if they'd had Juno jerking things around inside their heads, they wouldn't be so eager to fight her.

Bayek sits down on the bed next to her, and reaches for her hand. After a minute, Layla forces herself to relax enough to give it to him. When he's holding it, the shaking stops. "Layla," Bayek says quietly. "Listen. It _is_ a big job, but that's why it's so important to try. Somebody has to, and we're the only ones that can."

Layla hesitates. She's feeling a little better with Bayek talking her down in that calm, quiet voice, but she's still not entirely convinced.

"Is he trying to talk you into it?" Desmond asks.

"Yea," Layla admits. "I guess you're on his side?"

"I mean … I do really think we have to do this. Are you an Assassin, Layla?"

She hesitates. "Sort of," she says. "It's kind of complicated. And new. And I'm just sort of figuring it out as I go along."

He grins at her, the first time Layla's seen him smile so far. "Yea," he says. "Trust me, I know that feeling. But my point was going to be… we're supposed to protect innocents. It's not just fighting Templars, that just kind of happens. We're here to help people, you know? I really believe that, or I don't think I'd be with the Assassins, I'd still be running away. And this is what the Assassins do. This is worth fighting for, don't you think?"

Layla can't quite meet his eyes, but when she looks back at Bayek, he's waiting with a patient, understanding expression that's not much easier to face. But she forces herself to do it, to look Bayek full in the face, and then turn and look at Desmond too. "Well," she says. "I guess if you two are going to go after Juno, I can't be the one that just sits back and does nothing, right?"

"Nope," Desmond says, smiling again.

She turns to Bayek. "We're saving the world," she tells him.

"Good!" He squeezes her hand, then lets go. "Now we just need to figure out where to start."

 **-/-**

 **Three quick notes-first of all, I think I kind of went overboard with updates this weekend, but unfortunately that's going to slow down-work takes up time during the week of course, and then my next few weekends are busier, so... slower updates, sadly.**

 **Second, I usually don't like responding to reviews in author's notes, but there is either a guest reviewer or multiple guest reviewers that have been leaving very nice, long, well thought out comments, and I just want to say I would _love_ to be able to respond but unfortunately there's just no way to respond to guest reviews. :( So thank you guys, I love reading what you think of the fic, and I love your opinions and questions, they are definitely making me think about where this is going. :)**

 **Finally, I promise Juno's going to be a little less present in the next few chapters. Now that she's all set up and Bayek/Layla/Desmond have something to focus on in their time travel, I can go back to focusing on them more, which I'm _really_ looking forward to :)**


	7. Chapter 7

They don't do anything at all that night. Nothing related to time travel or Juno or apples, anyway. All three of them are determined to do get started as soon as they can, but the best of intentions quickly give way to simple exhaustion. They've all been through too much today—Bayek has travelled from two thousand years in the past, Desmond has died and come back, and Layla has had a truly terrifying encounter with Juno. Once the initial adrenaline wears off, they crash pretty hard.

Desmond manages to hold out the longest, maybe out of a weird sense that he's supposed to be the host here. They're in his apartment after all, even if Desmond himself thought he would never be back here again. He's sitting up on one of the mismatched chairs he'd rescued from a secondhand shop, while Layla and Bayek sit next to each other on the bed, leaning back against the wall and talking quietly.

Desmond has no idea what they're talking about, but he can tell just by their body language that Bayek is trying to calm Layla down from whatever Juno had done to her. He's doing most of the talking, in a kind of slow, almost but not _quite_ monotonous voice, like he's telling her a story, or just running on a long train of thought. Desmond watches, half because he's interested and half because he's too tired to do anything else. His hand, the one he'd used to touch the eye back in the temple, aches dully. It doesn't look injured, but Desmond can sort of feel it, like… _underneath_ his skin. He rubs at it with his other hand, which helps a little bit. And it's not like it's a pain he can't live with, just a little annoying.

When the sound of Bayek's quiet voice trails off and stops, Desmond looks up from examining his hand to see what's going on. Then he smiles at the sight of both of them, only a few inches apart, both asleep. This has been a _weird_ day, and he's glad to see it winding down. Hopefully Juno and the pieces of Eden and everything else will look a little more manageable in the morning.

The problem now is that _he's_ getting tired—he hadn't realized just how tired until he sees the other two passed out at the foot of his bed. Desmond spends a few minutes trying to make himself comfortable on the chair. It really doesn't work.

He glances over at the bed, and after fighting with himself for a minute, gives in. Layla and Bayek are huddled down at the foot of the bed, and there's plenty of room for him to curl up at the head in a sort of ball. It's not the best place he's ever found to sleep, but it's _way_ better than the floor of the temple, or (even worse) the animus. Desmond closes his eyes without even meaning to, and drifts off almost immediately.

It's not a long sleep, but it is a deep one. The day's been exhausting, and Desmond hadn't been sleeping well for weeks even before then. Too much time in the animus, probably. Or worry about the end of the world. Or seeing his dad again. Hard to tell. But either way, being back in a bed, in _his own_ bed, quickly lulls Desmond into a deep sleep. This isn't the most comfortable bed in the world, but it's familiar enough that for the first time in ages, he lets his guard down.

But not for long. Desmond hasn't been asleep _nearly_ enough time when he feels a hand on his shoulder, grabbing at him, jerking him abruptly out of sleep. He kicks out as he wakes up, lashing out madly at his unseen attacker. In this state of half-sleep, with someone grabbing at him, all of Desmond's time in the animus, all of his ancestors rise up in him to fight off the unexpected threat.

" _Desmond_ ," his attacker says, almost a warning, and then a second voice, higher and angrier, adding, "What do you think you're _doing_?"

Desmond comes back to himself, breathing hard and half pinned to the bed by Bayek. His eyes dart sideways to Layla's extremely judgmental face, and figures out what must have happened.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "Tell him to let me up, Layla, I'm fine now."

She doesn't say a word to Bayek, just crosses her arms and gives him a pointed look. "What happened there?" she asks instead.

"What do you think?" Desmond asks. "You startled me, I was asleep, I thought I was being attacked."

"You almost punched him," Layla says, an unmistakable protective tone creeping into her voice. In almost any other circumstances, Desmond would have smiled at the thought of Layla trying to protect Bayek. He's taller and broader and heavier than she is, and Desmond guesses she's a less experienced fighter, too.

"I'm sorry," he says out loud, which is true at least. "I should have warned you, I… do that, when I'm startled. It's the bleeding effect, from all the time I spent in the animus."

"You should have used a better animus then," Layla tells him. " _Mine_ never gave me any of the symptoms of the bleeding effect."

"Yea, yea," Desmond mutters. He feels oddly protective of the animus he's spent most of the last several months sitting in. So maybe he's bleeding, and she isn't—he's done the best with what he has, just like she certainly has. "But the point is… I'm sorry, but I need to wake up on my own."

He ducks his head, face turning red, as Bayek backs off and asks Layla a question. Desmond's heard that phrase from him enough times by now to recognize that he's asking her to translate. He doesn't want to see his reaction when Layla tells him her version of his explanation. He _knows_ it's embarrassing that he just tried to fight the two of them off for waking him up, he doesn't need to see their reactions. Impatience or disgust or worst of all _pity_.

"Sorry," he says again, when Layla's done explaining it all to Bayek. He risks looking up at them.

"It's fine," Layla says, waving a dismissive hand as she drops into the chair Desmond had been trying to sleep in before. "Anyway, there's a reason we woke you up—Bayek and I were talking about what to do next, and we thought we should get your opinion before we make any decisions."

"Thank you," Desmond says, a little surprised and trying to hide it.

"We're in this together," Layla says, voice serious. "And we're going to need everyone we can get on our side if we want to stop Juno, right?"

Desmond nods. "Right. So… what have you guys thought up so far."

"Well," she says. "I guess we figure that we need two main things. She holds up a finger. "First, some way to find out where Juno's going and what artifacts she's after." A second finger. "And we need a strategy for getting hold of the artifacts before she does."

"Okay," Desmond says, sitting up a little more—it's easier to push down his embarrassment now that the conversation has moved on from him. "Well, the second part is easy enough. We have Bayek, and we have the apple. He can chase her down once we know where she's going, right?"

"She has an apple too," Layla reminds him. "And the stuff she did with the apple before… you weren't there, but it was—I know it freaked _me_ out." She sounds absolutely affronted that Juno could have gotten inside her head like that. "And something tells me it's only going to get worse if she gets hold of more artifacts—it's not like we can't exactly go around mind controlling people the way she can."

Desmond nods firmly. "We _can't_ ," he agrees. "But… I mean, that just means we have to be faster and smarter than her, right? We find some way of tracking her wherever she goes, and we just… do better than her."

"That's kind of what we were thinking, yea," Layla admits. She doesn't look very happy about it. "But it's pretty risky to just be chasing after her, and we were hoping you'd know something we didn't."

But Desmond doesn't have any brilliant new ideas, and he shakes his head. Layla sighs before turning to Bayek and rattling off a quick sentence or two of explanation. He makes a face and then nods.

"We'll figure it out," Layla says, turning her attention back to Desmond. Her face is set in a mask of stubbornness that makes Desmond absolutely believe her. "You're an Assassin and Bayek's a Hidden One, and I'm not planning to give up too easily myself."

"So I guess that just means we need to find a way to track Juno when she moves," Desmond says.

"Yea," Layla says. " _That_ part we're kind of stuck on. Bayek took me for a quick trip through time before we woke you up, just kind of looking around." It's amazing, Desmond thinks absently, how quickly things like that have started to sound normal. "We were looking for any signs of Juno, but it's not like tracking someone through normal space. We couldn't figure out where she went. She could be _anywhere_."

"Not exactly anywhere," Desmond says, speaking slowly. A dim idea is starting to nag at him from the back of his mind, and he's a little nervous about scaring it away. "And not anywhen. We already know she's going after other pieces of Eden, so that probably means while she'll be trying to get at them while they're out in the open, not after they get hidden away. So that narrows it down to whenever the pieces of Eden get used, right?"

"I guess that means there's fewer places where she might go," Layla admit. "But still too many."

"But…" No, he _really_ doesn't want to suggest this. It's the best idea he can think of, but it's still… well, it's going to _suck,_ going through all that again.

"But what?" Layla prompts, and Desmond realizes he's just kind of staring off into space.

"Yea," he says. "Sorry. I just… I was thinking, we already know where a _lot_ of the pieces of Eden are, don't we?"

"I don't," Layla says.

"No, I didn't mean specifically you, but like—we in general know a lot about the pieces of Eden. Because of the animus, right? That's _basically_ the only thing anyone uses it for."

"That's true," Layla says slowly. "And it's only gotten worse in the last five years or so. More and more people are going into the animi, and you're probably right about them looking for pieces of Eden."

Desmond's not particularly happy to hear that there are more people after him that were forced into the animus, but in this case, it's kind of going to help his plan. "So what I was thinking," he says, "Is we use that to track the pieces of Eden. We all go in, and we watch for Juno, or for any signs that she's changing the past. Then, once we have her location narrowed down, we send Bayek back to whenever it was."

There's a strangled pause. Layla seems to be chewing this over.

"It's not great," Layla says. "That's a lot of people to track down, and we'll have to convince all of them to get back into an animus for us, but—" She takes a deep breath. "It's better than anything I can think up."

"So that means I have to get taken by Abstergo again," Desmond says glumly. "It's the fastest way to get back into the animus."

"And if we want you to change what happens on December 21, we might need you to replicate things up until then," Layla says. "Because while we're trying to stop Juno in the past from getting all these pieces of Eden… we should also be trying to figure out a way for you to stop the sun from burning up the world _without_ also freeing her. Then when we catch up to December 21… you stop her. Somehow." She squints sideways at Desmond. "Does that make sense?"

"Yea," he says. "I think it does." He takes a breath. "So… I'll need to be _here_ , in 2012. Bayek will need to be in the past fighting Juno for the pieces of Eden, and you—" He looks at Layla. "You're going to have to convince a whole bunch of other people to climb back into the animus and look for Juno."

"So we all have really terrible jobs," she says, already turning to Bayek to translate. "Fantastic."

"Hey," Desmond says. "Nobody ever said saving the world was fun." But… in a weird way, he can feel his heart speeding up, and it's not with fear it's with _excitement_. After all, he's done this before—gone on the run with a small group of truly desperate but also truly _good_ people, doing everything they could to save the world. He hasn't known Bayek and Layla for very long, but Desmond already has a feeling that they're exactly the kind of people he wants at his side for a crazy mission like this one.

 **-/-**

 **Urgh, sorry for how long this chapter took to post. I was hoping to have it up yesterday, and then a massive storm blew threw and we had power out for 22 hours, so... no typing, no posting... sorry!**

 **Also, I keep meaning to say this but somehow I always forget-please feel free to let me know if any of the time travel stuff is confusing. Sometimes it's hard to get that right balance between underexplaining and overexplaining. So let me know if I ever need to be clearer!**


	8. Chapter 8

Bayek and Layla leave Desmond behind in 2012, and travel five years forward to 2017. Bayek can't help feeling _bad_ about that, no matter how much time they've spent talking about it.

Which is two days, to be exact. They've spent two days holed up in Desmond's tiny apartment trying to make sure that he's really okay with this, and there's really no better way of finding Juno—in the end, they hadn't been able to come up with anything better, and they'd gotten nervous about whatever Juno's up to. None of them really understands how this time travel works, whether Juno is still working on whatever she's doing in the past, or if maybe she's already done it, but they _do_ know that however this works, waiting isn't going to do them any favors.

"So I've been thinking," Bayek says, as they travel.

"Hmm?" Layla asks. She seems distracted, and Bayek can't exactly blame her. They've done this a few times already, but it's still kind of awe inspiring. "What were you thinking about?"

"The best way to do this might be to take all our animus recruits back to 2012 with Desmond's time," Bayek says. "If one of them finds Juno, we need a quick way for them to get word to us. That's not going to work if they're all in different times and places. I'm not saying they should all be kidnapped by Abstergo like Desmond, but they should all be in the same _time_ , so they can get a message out right away if something happens."

"That's going to be a tough sell," Layla points out. "I mean, _we_ can time travel and it's no big deal, but a lot of people might be more worried about it, you know?"

"I still think it's worth trying," Bayek says. "Please, Layla? It's not going to really do us any good if we can't keep on top of everyone." Which is _true_ , and a good argument, even if it's not really Bayek's main reason for trying to convince Layla to get everyone together. It's just that he already feels incredibly close to both Layla and Desmond. There's a bond between them, now that they're all trying to save the world together. They feel just a little bit like (and it's almost too early for Bayek to dare say the word to himself, but he tries anyway) _family_.

And Bayek would like a little bit more of that, if he can get it.

"I guess that makes sense," Layla says. "Plus people might… believe us more, if they see how time travel works?"

Bayek smiles at her a little, then looks up at Senu. She's already diving downward, and Bayek follows her without hesitation. She knows where they're going by now. Sure enough, when they land back in the normal flow of time, they're in his tomb, with William Miles looking at them in surprise. Bayek has a flash of quick surprise as well—he hasn't noticed until right this second the family resemblance between William and Desmond, but he suddenly feels guilty for not bringing Desmond to at least visit his father. William had watched his son die, he'll probably want to see him again.

(And in the back of Bayek's mind, there's just the small beginnings of a thought, something his conscious mind won't even dare to let him think about)

William says something, and Bayek looks to Layla—he's really going to need to learn this English soon—and she says, "He's surprised we came back so soon. He—" William says something else, and Layla adds, "It's only been about ten minutes since we left."

Bayek nods, because why would that surprise him at this point? He and Layla have spent two days with Desmond, and to William only ten minutes have passed. "Have you told him what we're going to do?"

"No," she says. "I think you'll be able to tell when I do." And sure enough, when she's turned back to William and been talking with him for several minutes, there comes a moment when William just sort of _chokes_ as a reaction to something she says, and Bayek nods in understanding. Yes, she must have finally gotten through to him.

"He says we're crazy," Layla says, amusement coloring her tone.

"Well, yes," Bayek says. "I can see why he might think that."

William says something—he's not at all amused, he's angry—and this time Layla nods. "He says that some of the best Assassins alive today have been in the animus," she says. "And he's worried about what happens to the Assassins if all of those people go with us back to 2012. Which… is fair." She looks like she isn't happy about admitting this.

"What about the Templars?" Bayek asks. "I'm sure some of them have been in the animus too, and we'll have to bring them with us. That should even the odds a little bit."

She stares at him, and Bayek realizes that hasn't occurred to her yet—she's been thinking they'll only bring Assassins back in time with them, but if they do that, Bayek knows they'll be throwing away the chance to catch Juno if she goes into an era only a Templar has seen in the animus. "Great," she says. "Fantastic. Do you realize how difficult it's going to be getting everyone to cooperate once they're all in the same place? And that's even assuming they'll all agree to help—" She breaks off, her imagination conjuring up horrible mental images of a mass of Templars and Assassins jumping out of animi and attacking each other. She shakes it off. This plan is growing more and more holes the longer she thinks about it, but the problem is she still can't think of anything _better_.

"Listen," Bayek says. "Run the Templar idea past William, see if he thinks it's a good idea or not."

She does that, and Bayek can tell by her expression what William's answer is before she says a word. Sure enough, she says, "He doesn't like the idea much either, but we need their ancestors, so…" She heaves a sigh, and heads for her—Bayek's _pretty_ sure it's a computer. He'd seen Desmond with one, and gotten a little bit of an explanation about what they were for, but Layla's is different, thinner. "Guess we better get started."

-/-

In the end, they find about two dozen animus users, although not all of them are still alive in 2017. There are a few people they're going to have to try and pick up from the past before heading back to 2012—Layla's particularly worried about a man named Clay, who had apparently been Abstergo's subject before Desmond. According to William, he'd gone through dozens of ancestors before the bleeding effect finally drove him crazy and he slashed his wrists open with a pen, and killed himself. He's going to be difficult to convince to get back into the animus, but if he's seen as many ancestors as William says he has, he's definitely going to be important to have on their side.

William starts reaching out to the Assassins, as well as a couple techs he says will be able to set up all the animi they're going to need in 2012. Bayek sets himself to trying to get a grasp of the basics of English while he has the time, which means Layla has to reach out to the Templars to try and get them involved.

She thinks for a while about who to get in touch with. The problem is that Abstergo had made it pretty clear that they were done with her when they sent Sigma Team to try and kill her. So Layla could try reaching out to Sophia, or one of the other people she's worked with over the years (ideally she'd be trying to talk to Dee, but Dee is dead). But Sigma Team is going to find out about it eventually, no matter how secretive she tries to be.

In the end, she decides to go for the most straightforward choice. If Sigma Team is going to find out about her no matter what she does, she might as well go straight to the source. Layla opens up an email client on her computer, tapping her fingers impatiently against the desktop as she waits for things to buffer. The loading time stretches out just long enough for her to start having second thoughts, and then her inbox pops up, and Layla huffs out a little breath of relief before starting a new email.

 _From: Layla Hassan_

 _To: Juhani Otso Berg_

 _Date: November 8, 2017 4:03 PM_

 _Subject: Open Me_

 _I know I must be the last person you want to hear from, what with you trying to kill me last week, and also with that rude cross stitch I left on your car that one time. But I need to get in touch with a few Templars, and it seems like you might be able to scare up the people I'm looking for more quickly than anyone else. Plus if you agree to help me, I can be pretty sure you're not going to also be trying to kill me again._

 _Layla_

She sits there staring at her inbox for a while, waiting for an answer, but Berg doesn't do anything. Layla wonders if he's out somewhere hunting some other poor sap, too busy to look at his phone. Then she wonders if he's out somewhere hunting _her_ , and she shivers. Berg doesn't scare her much, especially not now that she has Juno to compare him to, but she knows she doesn't have to be afraid of him for him to come at her.

She's just thinking about getting up and going to find someone to bother and distract herself, when a quiet chime informs her that she has a new message.

 _From: Juhani Otso Berg_

 _To: Layla Hassan_

 _Date: November 8, 2017 4:41 PM_

 _Subject: Re: Open Me_

 _I'm listening. Skeptically._

So Layla tells him everything, and over the course of several emails back and forth, he goes from listening, skeptically, to just plain listening, to actually believing her. By the end of the email exchange, Layla is _pretty_ sure that he's not just trying to trick her into giving up her location. And she thinks he actually wants to help.

 **-/-**

 **I'm probably going to kind of gloss over getting all the animus users together, because honestly it's going to get a little repetitive to just be like 'and then they went and got this person. And then they went and got that guy.' And on and on. I might show one or two, but in general you can pretty much assume that if they went in an animus during an Assassin's Creed game/book/movie, they're going to be part of this.**

 **I am taking suggestions for which era they should go to first on their Juno-stopping time tour, and which ancestor(s) they should meet up with.**


	9. Chapter 9

Ten days later finds nearly everyone assembled, and their project almost ready to start.

"All these people?" Desmond asks. "Really, _all_ these people have been in an animus?"

He and Layla are in the large, open warehouse that they've decided to use for their animi headquarters, sitting on a folding table on one end of the room. Layla's checking her watch—probably wondering when Bayek will be back with even _more_ people—but Desmond can't tear his eyes away from the awkwardly milling crowds. They've been working on setting this up for a week and a half now, but they'll need to have it ready soon.

The day Desmond's supposed to be kidnapped is rapidly approaching, and they want to have this place up and running before he goes. Layla will stay here, in charge of everyone else running through their ancestors' memories. Desmond will be in Abstergo's hold, but he knows he'll have access to a computer and Layla had shown him (she's maybe a little _too_ familiar with how to do it?) how to get into parts of Abstergo's network he shouldn't be in, so he can get in contact if anything comes up. Bayek will be here with Layla until someone spots Juno in a memory, and from that point on he'll be in the past, checking in as often as he can.

"Yea," Layla says. "And I think we still have… three or four more of them we're waiting on."

Desmond nods. There's just… so _many_ people. He sees Assassins and Templars, mostly staying out of each other's way. He hears people speaking a whole range of languages, some of which he knows and some of which he doesn't even recognize. There are people in a range of fashions, mostly modern clothes but some have obviously been pulled from a little farther in the past, maybe from earlier versions of the animus when they were just starting to learn how the technology works.

It's a crazy cross section of people, and Desmond even sees _kids_ here, or teenagers, sticking together and mostly looking like they can't quite believe they've let themselves be dragged into all this. The only other animus user he recognizes is Clay, but since they'd obviously had to take him from a time before he died, he hadn't known Desmond when they met up here. It's probably for the best. Clay isn't insane yet, he's _just_ starting to show the first twitchy signs of the bleeding effect beginning, and Desmond hopes that the updated animi they're using here will help him.

"Not all of them are animus users," Layla reminds him, and Desmond grins. That's right—some of them are the techs, helping Layla throw together as many animi as possible for the (too many) users that will need a way to see into the past. Just that morning, he'd had a tearful reunion with Rebecca (who's here because she's great with making animi run) and Shaun (who is… possibly there to make snarky comments about history? Or possibly just to stay with Rebecca). Desmond knows he won't be here with them, but just knowing they're around really helps.

"That's true," he says, more cheerful now. Even if it's only a little bit more.

Bayek appears out of nowhere, holding the elbow of a man that Desmond doesn't know. Another animus user or a techie, hard to tell, but Desmond recognizes the look of _oh shit I thought he was kidding_ as he takes in the busy room around them. So far, it's the one thing that everyone Bayek's brought back has in common—that momentary expression of shock when they go from wherever they'd been in the future to the prep room here. It doesn't matter if they're Assassins or Templars or outside the fight altogether, they all have that moment of utter shock from traveling through that space between time, and then ending up here.

"Well go on," Layla says, a little bluntly, as he blinks around at everything. "Go and get your stuff set, we're trying to have a conversation here."

He moves off obligingly, leaving Desmond, Layla, and Bayek mostly alone. Bayek shifts a little closer to the table Desmond and Layla are sitting on, but doesn't join them. He starts in on a long explanation in his usual Egyptian, and Desmond lets his attention drift a little as he waits for Layla to explain whatever's happening. Maybe he looks a little bit _too_ distracted, because Rebecca comes over, grinning so enthusiastically that Desmond grins back.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," Desmond answers. She looks older than he remembers, which is stupid and obvious when he stops and thinks about it. They'd been close to the same age, just… well, just a few days ago, for him. But she's come from close to Layla's time (they'd agreed at the beginning not to take anyone from farther into the future than that), like most of the techs. There's no time for someone from 2012 or 2013 to be going to something from 2017 and saying _wait, what did you just do to that animus, that hasn't even been_ invented _yet in my time…_

"So are you doing okay?" Rebecca asks, dropping her voice a little, so that it's almost hard to hear her over the dull roar of conversations around them.

"Yea," Desmond says, trying not to look at his hand. It's not _usually_ painful, and it looks fine, it's just… every once in a while, it burns like there's a fire lighting him up from the inside. It never lasts long before it passes, but it always, _always_ sucks. "Yea, I'm fine. Not looking forward to going back to Vidic and Lucy, but… I mean, I need to get back to December 21st if we want to do that day over and get rid of Juno for good, so…"

"Hmm," Rebecca says, and leaves it at that. Her expression, however, says it all, and Desmond grins.

"Hey," he says. "Don't you want to stop her?"

"I do," Rebecca assures him. "But you already died once, and I don't want you to have to go through it again."

"I mean… it's going to have to happen sometime," Desmond points out. He's trying to make a joke out of it, if only because Rebecca looks so upset, but it backfires when she frowns.

"You know I don't usually like to be too serious about things," she says. "But Juno did kill you, or… almost kill you. And it was in a pretty horrible way. I saw the autopsy results, and it was horrible. I'd rather not lose you to her a second time."

"Me too," Desmond says. "Look, Becca, I'm being serious too. I don't want to die. I'm _terrified_ of dying, and that thing Juno needed me to touch—it _hurt_. I don't ever want to go anywhere near that kind of pain again, and I intend to have a really good plan when I get back to December 21st. I'm going to be _ready_ , and she's not going to win." He looks her in the eye, and says, "Okay?"

Somehow, that seems to do the track—she seems reassured. "Yea. Okay."

"So is that what you came over here to talk to me about?" he asks.

"No, actually," Rebecca says, and she seems to rally a little bit. "I can't help noticing that… that Bayek can't really communicate with most of us." She stumbles over the name, and Desmond wonders if she'd already known who he is—only a couple of the Templars so far have seemed to recognize who he is, but the Assassins are about half and half. Some have no idea whatsoever who Bayek is, and some look absolutely awed at the sight of him. If Rebecca is one of the Assassins that knows who Bayek is, at least she's making an effort not to show it.

"Yea," Desmond says. "He can only talk to Layla because no one else speaks ancient Egyptian. I asked—" He jerks his head toward the crowded room. "Because I figured maybe _someone_ had an ancestor in his era, but so far nobody does."

"Right," Rebecca says. "So, what I thought was maybe I could take the translation software we use in the animus and implement it in an earpiece." She reaches over and pulls out two Bluetooth earpieces that look like they've been taken apart and put back together. "I pulled the data from Layla's animus sessions, and I have one that will pick up English and translate it for him, and one that can pick up Egyptian and translate it for you."

"That's _genius."_

Desmond jumps as he realizes Layla is right behind him, inches behind his neck.

"Personal space," he mutters, and she ignores him.

"How were you able to isolate the linguistic programming without interference from—"

And off they go on an excited conversation that Desmond, unfortunately, cannot understand at all. Instead, he puts the first headset, the one Rebecca has scrawled _English_ on, and hands the other one to Bayek. With Layla totally preoccupied talking tech with Rebecca, it takes a fair amount of miming and a couple brave stabs with Italian to get Bayek to put the _Egyptian_ earpiece on, but eventually he manages it. Senu, who has come down to rest on Bayek's shoulder, seems to catch on before Bayek does. She nips carefully at his fingers, encouraging him.

Desmond grins as he watches the two of them. He's liked Senu since the beginning, and he likes watching the way she works with Bayek. She's easily as smart as most people he knows. "Okay," he says, when the earpieces are fully in place. "These are supposed to translate for us, is yours working?"

There's an ever so slight delay, and Desmond then Bayek looks at him and grins.

"Yes it is," he says, and Desmond grins back. Practically speaking, it's going to make things so much easier if Layla's not the only one that can understand Bayek. On a more emotional level, though, Desmond's gotten to feel close to Bayek over the past couple weeks, and he's so excited that they're going to get to talk now, too. "Then your friend has worked a miracle," Bayek says seriously, and Desmond makes a mental note to tell Rebecca later, and maybe to heap some of his own praise on top—he's known for a while now that the animus has a translation program, but because of the bleeding effect he's never really _noticed_ it. Stuff like that is there more for people like Rebecca, who aren't actually in the animus but need to know what's going on. He's amazed at how quickly it works.

"Wait," Layla says, cutting off midsentence and turning to the two of them. "It works?"

"Yea," Desmond says.

" _Yes_ ," Rebecca mutters, breaking into a grin. "Right, then, I'm going to go see if I can piece together a few more. Just in case." And she rushes off.

"So we're going to all have a conversation," Layla says, looking between Desmond and Bayek. "This is great."

"Getting tired of translating?" Desmond asks.

" _So_ tired," Layla says, rolling her eyes. "But anyway, Desmond, to get back to Bayek and I we were talking about before—"

"We're done," Bayek says, smiling. "That's it. All the children have come home."

"What's that?" Desmond asks, cocking his head a little to one side. "About the children?" He's not sure if that's a translation error or a metaphor he doesn't know about—a quick glance over at Layla shows that he doesn't have the answer either.

"Oh." Bayek shakes his head. "No. That's just… I always think of children. I miss mine." He says it so simply that Desmond almost misses the importance. The only sign that this really means something to him is the brief, pitying look Layla shoots in his direction. He stays quiet, waiting to see if Bayek will elaborate. It's so weird to sort of… _know_ Bayek, from working together and from Layla's stories about Bayek's life, but they've never had a _conversation_ before. It feels somehow familiar and uncomfortable at the same time.

Finally, Bayek does continue. "They just remind me a little like children meeting for the first time. Look at them." Desmond looks, obligingly, and he can sort of see what Bayek is trying to say. Instead of the open aggression he'd expect to see between Assassins and Templars, he sees people striking up tentative conversations, making careful and almost shy inroads to working together.

"I wanted a whole family," Bayek says quietly. "I got one son, and then I lost him. And I'll never have another chance."

He shakes his head, and walks off. Desmond stays with Layla, watching him until he joins up with some of the others to help out.

"Bayek of nowhere," Layla said quietly when they were alone. "Father of no one."

"What?" Desmond asks, looking over at her.

"It's how he thinks of himself," Layla says. "Alone."

"He has us," Desmond says, and he's almost surprised at the fierce surge of loyalty he feels for Bayek. "And he formed… I mean, he started the Brotherhood. He has two thousand years of legacy, doesn't he?"

"But I don't know if he thinks like that," Layla says.

"That's sad."

"Hmm." Layla looks at him sideways, and grins. "So what I propose, Desmond."

"What do you _propose_ , Layla?"

"Well, I guess saving the world from Juno doesn't really seem _challenging_ enough," she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. "So I'm thinking that in our copious free time, we find a way to prove to Bayek he has a family."

And Desmond agrees wholeheartedly.


	10. Chapter 10

It starts with a normal night in the club, in Bad Weather—or maybe it's not normal, Desmond isn't sure because he can't remember what normal is supposed to be like anymore. Last time around, when he was living through this day for the first time, he remembers thinking it had been normal. It's just… this isn't really his life any more. He's not the same person anymore, and the life of a twenty five year old bartender just isn't normal to him.

The walk back to his apartment, the walk through the back alley shortcut, the walk he knows he'll never finish, feels more normal somehow. There's a dark van waiting for him on the corner, and when Desmond checks in eagle vision, he can see four Templars inside, ready to pounce. This is going to go just like last time, it has to because he needs to be kidnapped all over again.

But last time, it had _hurt_.

An eagle screeches overhead, and Desmond jerks his head up to look at it. He's feeling a little on edge. He relaxes a little when he sees that it's Senu. He knows her by now, even from this far away—she's definitely been around enough over the past few weeks for Desmond to learn how to recognize her. And if she's here, it means that she's watching him, and that means Bayek is probably watching too. That thought gives Desmond the courage he needs to walk forward, into Abstergo's ambush.

It does hurt, of course. Being grabbed and beaten and finally drugged into unconsciousness is pretty much always going to hurt, but this time Desmond knows he could make it _stop_ , he knows how to fight and he can fight better than the men waiting for him. Desmond bites his tongue so hard it bleeds, just to stop himself from defending himself.

Finally his consciousness starts to fade, and Desmond is almost relieved. His muscles relax as the drugs hit his system and fighting back just stops being an option. His face hits the ground and luckily he's so numb he barely feels it. With a little bit of effort, Desmond manages to turn his head so that his last sight before total blackness is Senu, still circling.

He doesn't know how long he's out, and it doesn't help that he's put in an animus before he's completely awake. Desmond has been through enough of Altair's life that _normally_ it wouldn't be hard at all to slip into his ancestor's memories and synch—but he's groggy enough from the drugs and from not _remembering_ getting into the animus that he just can't make himself synch. There's a painful, wrenching, desynching sensation, and then Desmond is back in the real world, lying on Abstergo's uncomfortable animus (he thinks briefly of all their time traveling recruits in their hidden headquarters, with their more advanced and _comfortable_ animi, and he's jealous).

"Welcome back to the land of the living," says a sarcastic voice, and Desmond sits up as quickly as he can to frown at Vidic.

He's all ready with a sarcastic response, because he remembers from his first time doing this that sarcasm really pisses Vidic off, and a pissed off Vidic makes more mistakes, but then he stops. _He_ knows that he's done all this before, but to Vidic and—he glances off to the right out of the corner of his eye, and sure enough she's there—Lucy will be expecting him to know nothing.

He needs to pretend to be as scared and confused as he had been before, or they're going to suspect… well, they're not going to suspect the truth, because who in their right mind would jump to the conclusion of _a time traveling ancient Egyptian rescued me from being killed by a 70,000 year old woman from another species, and now we're trying to stop her from taking over the planet_? But they might think _something's_ up. Last time, Vidic had threatened him several times with a medically induced coma, and although that would have been bad then, it's infinitely worse now. Desmond _needs_ to be able to get in contact with Layla if he finds Juno in his ancestor's memories, he can't be put in a coma—

"A little bit stupid, isn't he?" Vidic says dismissively to Lucy, when Desmond doesn't say a word.

Lucy doesn't answer. Instead, she looks up from her computer and gives Desmond a sheepish, almost apologetic look. If Desmond hadn't been a time traveler, he would have believed her. Instead, he takes a deep breath and looks at Vidic. "Where am I?" he asks, voice cracking as he struggles to sound scared.

Vidic manages to work two insults into his short answer, and then three into his answer to the next question after that, and somehow the conversation just goes downhill after that. Desmond tries to be as thorough as he possibly can with his questions despite the insults, because at least the more they tell him, the less he has to worry about accidentally saying something he shouldn't know about yet.

Eventually he can tell they're getting to a point where Vidic is getting genuinely irritated with him, and Desmond lets himself be steered back into the animus. There's a longer than usual wait as the memory loads—Desmond has forgotten how shitty this animus is—but then, all at once, he does, and at least this part is as familiar and… to be totally honest, _amazing_ as he remembers.

For Desmond, when he first loads into a memory in the animus, it's like being in free fall, like taking a leap of faith. When he first started out, when he didn't know what he was doing, that had been terrifying. Over time, as the leap of faith became more and more comfortable, this free fall had started to feel better too.

He falls and falls, he almost flies, and when he lands it's not in a pile of hay, but in his ancestor's mind. There's a brief stutter as Desmond meets Altair, and then their minds meet, merge, and Desmond feels the familiar warmth of his ancestor welcoming him in.

Desmond spares a brief moment, as he adjusts to Altair's mind, to feel sorry for Layla. For him, with his ancestors, there's always a vague feeling of family when he's reliving their memories. He feels protected, the way he had with his parents when he was very small. Bayek isn't family to her, and Desmond wonders if it feels the same for her when she's in his memories.

And then, for quite a while after that, he stops being Desmond, and is Altair.

-/-

"He's synching well," Lucy says after about an hour. Desmond is making good progress through Altair's memories, far better than she had expected. There's only been one desynchronization so far, and that had been because of a glitch in the memory—he'd gotten too close to a cliff edge that wasn't fully loaded.

"Poor choice of words," Vidic murmurs, as Desmond navigates Altair carefully around the Acre docks.

"Sorry?" Lucy says, looking up from her computer.

"Synching," Vidic repeats. Then, with more emphasis. _"Sinking_. We still don't have the fucking water programmed right."

Lucy can't tell if he's joking or pissed off, so she just smiles and nods.

A passing man bumps into Altair, sending him off the dock and into the water—the second he touches the water, Desmond desynchs.

"Damn," Vidic mutters. "Pull him out, Miss Stillman. He's made enough progress for today, and it's getting late."

Lucy checks her watch. It's after six, and since they're well on their way to reaching their deadline, she's pretty sure Vidic wants to get home and have a decent night's sleep. She wouldn't mind some sleep herself, to be honest, and she's sure Desmond will be grateful to get…

To get out of the animus…

"He's gone back in," she says.

"What?" Vidic demands, striding over to look at Lucy's screen. Sure enough, it's already loaded Acre back up, and Desmond-as-Altair is striding through it confidently, with purpose. "He went back in himself? You didn't—"

"No," Lucy says. "I didn't." Normally, especially on someone's first day in the animus, she has to force the initiation of each new memory. Of course it's possible for someone to choose to go back into their ancestor's memories after desynching, but no one ever _does_.

"Force a desynch and pull him out," Vidic says, after considering this for a moment. "I don't know why he's so eager for this—" His expression and his tone are genuinely puzzled. "But it's _possible_ that it's an early manifestation of the bleeding effect. Associating too strongly with his ancestor."

"That, or you really scared him when you were threatening to induce a coma." Lucy sighs, and starts the process to pull him out. When Desmond blinks and opens his eyes, Lucy imagines she sees an expression of frustration race across his face. He wipes it away quickly, but in that moment, Lucy realizes something. For some reason, Desmond _wants_ to be in the animus.

And then he gets up, of course, he complains about his situation and the animus and everything else and that just makes Lucy more confused and suspicious. She doesn't say anything to Vidic, because right now it's nothing but a feeling, and Vidic has never had much patience for feelings when facts were available.

But she resolves to watch him, and to figure out exactly what's so alluring to him about the animus.

-/-

 _From: censored_

 _To: censored_

 _Date: September 3, 12:22 AM_

 _Subject: Day 1_

 _Hey Layla, how's it going? Hope your day's been better than mine? Any breakthroughs? Anyone see Juno yet?_

 _I haven't seen her here, and I think Lucy might be getting a little suspicious. She stayed tonight after Vidic left, and she kept asking all these questions about how I felt about the animus—I don't know what she suspects, but she definitely suspects something. I'll play stupid tomorrow, and hopefully she'll back off._

 _I'll write again tomorrow night, but you know how exhausting the animus is. I'm going to try and get a couple hours of sleep._

 _Tell Bayek and Senu and everyone I said hey._

 _\- Desmond_

 _-/-_

 _From: censored_

 _To: censored_

 _Date: September 2, 12:45 AM_

 _Subject: Re: Day 1_

 _Oh my god, Desmond, go to bed. How long were you in the animus today? And not even a_ good _animus, I've seen the specs for that monster and I can't believe your brain isn't leaking out through your ears yet. Bayek says go to bed too, and we decided we're going to show him he's family, right? And he was first, right? So I guess that makes a little like all the Assassins' spiritual great-great-great-great-etc-grandfather. If Gramps says go to bed, then you go to bed._

 _No Juno yet here either, but we're only just starting to get everyone into the animi. It's like herding cats, I swear. But then when you get them all in, it's like… okay, so we kind of had to huddle the animi up wherever they would fit, so they're just in this kind of chaotic mash and half of them are right up by the table where we have the food set out because everyone wants to be by the food, why wouldn't they, but the techs… so we got them set up in pretty much straight news—Berg insisted, I think he likes being able to walk up and down the rows and look at what everyone's up to. I was making fun of him at first, which really pissed him off, but then I tried it myself, and you know what? Just… walking past all those screens, watching Assassins and Templars all across history and all over the world, it's kind of amazing, even if I wish we were here for a nicer reason than stopping Juno. And I wish you could be here to see it too._

 _Soon enough. Stick with it, Desmond. She'll show up sooner or later, and then we'll sic Gramps on here and she'll wish she never messed with us._

… _And I just reread this rambling mess of an email and now I think I need more sleep too. But it's... what, almost 1 AM out in Rome? It's still evening here, and there's a lot left to do. Anyway, send me another email tomorrow. Check in, let us know you're still alive._

 _\- Layla_

 **-/-**

 **To be honest, I think I could write an entire fic of Desmond and Layla snarking with each other through emails.**


	11. Chapter 11

"Is that the last of them?"

Layla looks up from the computer where she's been typing out her email to Desmond, and quickly hits send when she recognizes Berg. He doesn't need to see her nonsense ramblings, even if she is hoping they'll cheer Desmond up a little. "I think so," she says, glancing around at the room. As far as she can tell, the animi have all emptied out, and most of them have already been put into rest or maintenance modes for the night. She should probably have been helping out with that, actually.

Well, maybe she can help set up the bunks for tonight, there's still a little work left to do upstairs. They'd thought about just getting sleeping bags and having everyone camp out on the floor next to the animi, but in the end they'd decided to clear out the two rooms directly over the animi room, and just cover the floors with mattresses and as many comfortable blankets and pillows as they can afford with one of the Assassins' hidden bank accounts (the same one, incidentally, that had paid for this place).

"I need the computer when you're done with it," Berg says gruffly, not meeting Layla's eye.

"There's plenty of other—"

"That's the only one with an outside line," Berg says. "I need an email hookup."

Layla is instantly suspicious. There's a reason most of the computers don't have access to the internet—either side could gain a huge advantage if someone here sends out an email to either the Templars or the Assassins, and everyone here has agreed not to risk it. "Why?" she asks. "Going to report back to your Templar friends?"

He raises his eyebrows. "No," he says. "My daughter."

Alright, that was not what Layla had been expecting. "Your…?"

"You heard me the first time."

He's so calm it's almost infuriating, and Layla almost walks away without asking more questions, just to deprive him of the apparent _I know something you don't know_ pleasure of answering them. But she actually does want answers—why is it so important to him to be able to email his daughter, and what exactly is he going to say? Why hadn't Layla ever even known he _had_ a daughter?

"You know we're five years in the past, right?" she asks.

"Yes. I understand the concept of time travel. I understand that we were all brought to 2012 by your ancient friend and his bird, and I know that it's important to you that we all meet in _this_ year, so you can stay in the same time as Miles. And I do understand that this is five years in the past for Elina, but that doesn't matter."

"It does matter," Layla says. Elina? That's her name? "Because you'd be changing—"

"Nothing," Berg interrupts smoothly. "She's three years old this year, Layla. She's not exactly _reading_ her emails."

"Then why do you want to send one to her so badly?"

She can tell, once she asks the question, that Berg is having second thoughts on whether or not to answer. But she waits, arms crossed over her chest, standing pointedly in front of the computer. And eventually, Berg gives in.

"I know I might not be here when she's older," he tells her. "I know every mission I go on might be my last. So I set up an email account for her. If I die, the count information go into a trust for her, along with everything else I hope to leave her. She'll get the password when she's eighteen, and she can do what she wants with it. She'll at least have a chance to know me a little."

Layla still doesn't budge. It _sounds_ sweet, yea, but the problem is that Berg's never struck her as a particularly sweet guy. How does she know this is really going to his daughter, anyway? It could be anyone on the other end of the message.

"You can read it when I'm done, if you're that worried," Berg snaps. "Let me use the computer now."

"It'd be safer not to."

"Let him use it, Layla."

She turns, flushing a little because she hasn't realized there was someone listening in. It's Bayek, of course. Really shouldn't have been a surprise by now—no one else would have spoken in Egyptian. "There's a risk to letting him send messages out," she says carefully, but Bayek doesn't seem concerned and Berg actually smiles, clearly pleased that Bayek's taken his side.

"It's his daughter," Bayek tells Layla, as he draws her away from the computer.

"So he says," Layla says, but when she looks at Bayek, he's watching Berg bend over the keyboard.

"I believe him," he says.

" _Why_?" Layla asks, dropping her voice so she can be absolutely sure Berg won't hear. Then, even though Bayek is using his earpiece, she switches to Egyptian as well. Just for privacy. "I don't believe him, and I've known him longer."

"The look in his eyes," Bayek explains. "I know it. I feel it, every time I think… Layla, when you become a parent, you'll understand the panic of realizing your child is out of reach. Berg's daughter is still alive but he can't talk to her without ruining the timeline. If he has this, I'm not going to take it away from him."

She's not going to argue with that because she can't, not without insulting Bayek and Khemu. So instead, Layla glances down and asks, " _When_ I'm a parent, Bayek?"

"Sorry," he says. "If. But you would make a good parent, Layla. Any child would adore you."

Layla is… _so_ not ready for motherhood. Maybe someday. Probably not. But either way, Bayek is so earnest in his compliment that it's hard not to appreciate it, and it even drives away a little of the sting of letting Berg have what he wants. Only… she keeps thinking. "Bayek?"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever think about… going back for Khemu?"

For a moment, Bayek doesn't answer. Then he leans back against the nearest workstation and lets out a sigh. "No," he says. "I'm not letting myself think about it."

"I think… you _should_ think about it," Layla says. "Because you could do it. You wouldn't even have to change history that much, you could just go back to… to that day and _take_ him, instead of letting him be killed. The past you would still think he was dead, he'd still do all the things you did—" And she knew that was true because she'd been Bayek, and she knew how he would react. "But Khemu is safe. You really haven't…?"

"It's not going to work," Bayek says, determinedly not looking at her. "It's _not_ , Layla, because the universe is cruel and it took my son from me." His voice is thick with grief and anger, and people are starting to stare at them. Bayek clearly doesn't notice. "And it's never going to let me have him back."

"You have to at least try," Layla insists.

"It will only make things worse."

"Worse than letting him _die?_ " Layla cries, and Bayek gives her such a withering glare that she steps back—even with her privileged view of how he thinks, she can't tell if he's angry in that moment, or scared. Maybe both.

"Here," Bayek says, striding toward her. There's a sudden sharp weight in Layla's hands, and she realizes with a shock that he's forced the apple on her. "You do it, if you think you can." By now, as he strides out of the room, looking almost foreign to Layla with his anger and his fear, every eye in the room is on them.

Well, every eye but Berg's, still fixated on his email to his daughter.

Khemu is never going to read another message from his father, the way Elina will always have those emails from hers. Layla hears a soft noise—feathers—from behind her, and then a heavy and slightly painful weight on her shoulder. It hits her that technically, she has everything she needs to travel through time the way Bayek does. The apple and Senu. She just doesn't know if she _can_.

Everyone is still staring.

"Well keep doing whatever you were doing," Layla says, trying to sound casual. She doesn't want to scare them all of now, especially when she _knows_ a lot of them are relying on Bayek-the-first-Assassin, Bayek-the-time-traveler, to lead them. "Just a little fight, and I need to, ah—just run out on an errand."

She doesn't want to stand there, the center of everyone's attention, and try to travel back in time. So Layla hurries with Senu just outside the room, where she immediately leans against a wall and stares at the apple. Come on, come on, come on, _come on—_

A flash of light, and she's falling, or flying, Senu at her side. Layla shrieks in sheer surprise and almost drops the last apple. At the last second she squeezes her hands tight over it and then wraps her whole body in a fetal position around it. "Senu!" she screams, as they just keep falling. She really hasn't thought this through ( _typical, Layla, just absolutely typical_ , she can hear Dee scolding her in the back of her mind) and now she's not sure how Bayek navigates from year to year. "Senu, take us home!"

Senu doesn't seem to hear her for a second, but then…

She starts flying, reassuringly calm as she soars forward. Layla grits her teeth and sort of wills herself after the eagle. She's focusing so hard that her head pounds, and then after what seems like forever (but is really only two thousand years), she lands, hard, flat on her back.

"Ow," she mumbles, as Senu lands on her knee and preens. "Yea, yea. Good job, Senu. Good girl."

Suitably acknowledged, Senu pecks at Layla and then when Layla sits up, flies up to her shoulder. The weight, so familiar from her time in the animus, focuses Layla. This is it. This is the place and the moment when Bayek's son is supposed to die. She's just outside the… what is it, technically, another Temple like the one in New York? She's right outside the place where Khemu had died, so Layla gathers her wits, ignores her throbbing back, and creeps down.

Bayek doesn't have very clear memories of this day. Just nightmare images and the sounds of screams. The smell of blood. Layla can't exactly blame him, but it does make her job harder. She can't quite picture the timing of how everything goes down, and her mind just keeps flashing back to Bayek's chaotic nightmare. Will there really be time? She should have gotten here earlier, she could have set something up—

There's a heart tearing bellow, and Layla jumps. That's Bayek, in pain, and _oh fuck it's too late._ Layla charges down, barely thinking about hiding. It doesn't matter. She passes members of the Order on their way out (they look so much taller and more… solid, somehow, seeing them with her own eyes instead of Bayek's. The masks, even with Layla so focused on Khemu, are a little frightening). One seems to catch a glimpse of her, but Layla keeps moving and stays in the shadows, and he shakes his head and keeps walking.

They've abandoned Bayek and Khemu on the ground of the maybe-a-Temple. They're both on the floor, Bayek passed out from his injuries, but Khemu just barely awake. He looks like he's in shock, and his face is pale. Fading fast.

"Senu?" Khemu asks, almost choking on blood, and Layla can _hear_ the fear in his voice. Poor Bayek. Maybe this is the reason he didn't want to come back—how could he watch his son die?

Senu lands next to Khemu, rubbing up against his little boy cheek and fixing a glare on Layla. It seems to say _hurry up already_.

"Senu…" Khemu whimpers again. He turns his head, and Layla can see he's trying to cry and he just doesn't have the breath…

So she hurries up already. One hand shoots out to hold ( _careful, gentle_ ) Khemu's shoulder, and the other grips the apple tightly. This time, it's a little easier. She knows what feeling to look for, and she's needs to do this quickly. Layla's no doctor, but she's pretty sure that a trauma team at a children's hospital in 2012 is going to help Khemu more than whatever they have here.

This time, she barely notices the journey across the centuries. Senu leads her on, just like before, and Layla trusts her completely to get them back home.

"Oh my God!"

Layla opens her eyes, and looks around at the base she'd left just a few minutes ago, from her point of view. It's maybe an hour later here, evening, and the room is dark and almost empty. A couple of techs are still working at the computers, including Rebecca, and she's the one that had noticed her and Khemu arrive, and had screamed.

"I need an ambulance," Layla snaps, then remembers they're supposed to be hiding. "Or I need _someone_ to take him to a hospital."

And in the end, it's Berg. He comes running down when he hears Rebecca's scream, takes in the sight of the child bleeding on the floor, and whisks Khemu off immediately to get help. Layla goes with them, to translate, and leaves Rebecca with Desmond's translator earbud to tell Bayek what happened when he gets back.

-/-

Khemu is in surgery the entire night, and Bayek joins Layla and Berg in the waiting room almost as soon as his son is handed over to the doctors. It's a long, mostly quiet night, without much conversation. Layla spends most of it terrified that she's made a wrong choice, that she's just forcing Khemu to suffer longer before he dies, or that Bayek will never forgive her.

But by the time dawn breaks over the city, Layla has learned three things. First, that Bayek was right about Berg. The Templar doesn't say a word to them the whole night, but he's _there_ , and he'd brought Khemu to a doctor without pausing for a moment. Second, she's learned that Bayek isn't mad at her. Somewhere around 2:30 in the morning, he leans over and thanks her, sheepishly, for trying what he couldn't. She nods, and reaches for his hand to let him squeeze it hard.

And third, right as the sun rises, a surgeon comes out to find them, and Layla learns that Khemu is going to live.

 **-/-**

 **This was going to be a nice, quiet chapter about Bayek and Layla arguing about Berg and parents and I don't know what. But then Layla decided I WANT TO SAVE KHEMU and it didn't matter that I wanted until way later before bringing Khemu in, so... this chapter got out of control very quickly.** **Which unfortunately means the 'hey Layla, can you time travel on your own?' conversation is going to have to wait for next chapter, but it will come up I promise.**

 **(Also how is this eleven chapters in, and Bayek is still the only ancestor to show up in the story so far? Next chapter I promise, they're going to time travel to somewhere other than Ancient Egypt)**

 **And now it's 1 in the morning again and if I stay up to proofread I will fall asleep at work tomorrow, so please excuse any typos. :)**


	12. Chapter 12

Bayek had never dreamed he would have the chance to hold his son again, and for most of the day following Khemu's surgery, Bayek still isn't entirely convinced that's going to change. There are an awful lot of things in this hospital that seem more harmful than helpful to Bayek (even if Layla seems to take them all in stride). Chief among these are the Wire and the Tubes. English words without exact parallels in any language Bayek speaks, so in his mind they just morph into a nebulous kind of _threat_.

Bayek sits on a stiff chair too far from Khemu's bed (there's no room anywhere close to him, and even though Bayek is aching to lie next to his son and _just hold him_ , he… can't). For most of the morning, he just glowers at all those Wire and Tubes, wishing them away already. Layla, and occasionally Berg, pass in and out of the room as they deal with doctors and something called Insurance, another English word with no direct translation, although this one _does_ seem to annoy Layla. Bayek doesn't know what lies they tell, but at around noon, he asks Layla why the Wires and Tubes haven't been taken out yet.

Layla, who looks exhausted, says, "Because then he would die."

"He'll _die_ without them?" Bayek demands, because what kind of life could Khemu possibly have, tied up in these… _things_?

"They're helping him, Bayek," Layla says. "They'll help him get stabilized, and then when he's healthy, it'll all come out."

Bayek relaxes, and Layla seems to see that. Of course she does. She knows him remarkably well.

"But until then," she says quietly. "He needs them."

"Alright," Bayek says. "Just as long as they _are_ coming out."

"Soon," Layla promises.

And he trusts her. It's not that he hadn't trusted her before, of course, but there's something more to it now. He had lashed out at her, and she'd responding by travelling two thousand years into the past to save Bayek's son. He owes her his trust, if nothing else.

That particular train of thought leads Bayek to a new question, and at least it's a distraction from worrying about Khemu. "You used the apple," he says, turning to look at Layla.

She doesn't answer at first, but then she says, "I don't know how, if that's what you're wondering."

"The Sages told me I could use it because I had a good bloodline," Bayek says. "You're not my descendant, so that's not something we share."

"I don't know," Layla says.

"But it's important," Bayek insists. "You just did something that until now, we thought only I could do. We need to figure out why."

"Does it make a difference?" Layla asks. "Maybe I _do_ have a good bloodline, and this is just a massive coincidence. Or maybe it's something to do with all the time I spent as you in the animus. I don't _know_ , Bayek, but the point is that it did work. We could sit here and question it or we could just accept it, and frankly I haven't slept in two days, and I'm in favor of the second option."

He smiles a little. She looks so tired. "Okay, Layla," he says. "We'll just accept it. For now. But I think we should try and find a Sage at some point. I'd like to find some answers, if we can."

"What are you two talking about?" Berg asks, coming back into the cramped hospital room and leaning against the only part of the wall that didn't seem to be covered in equipment.

"Finding a Sage," Layla says. "Bayek thinks it'll help."

Berg responds with a snort of laughter. "No," he says. "I've met him, and no, he will not help."

Bayek badly wants to ask for more details, but while the earpiece Rebecca had given him lets him _understand_ Berg's English, it doesn't do anything to help him speak it himself. Layla looks like she's about to press Berg with some questions of her own, but before she can—

There's a slight rustling on the bed, and the sound of the hospital machinery—which has been humming and beeping constantly—changes slightly. Bayek can't tell if it's a good change or a bad change, but he knows what it means when Khemu opens his eyes. He's at his son's side in an instant, hovering as close as he can get with those _damn_ Wires and Tubes in the way. Khemu looks so tiny, dressed in the flimsy tunic they'd put him in after the operation, surrounded by unknown machinery—when Bayek reaches out and gently takes his hand, he looks even smaller.

"Papo?" Khemu whispers, squinting at Bayek as his eyes adjust to the harsh hospital lights.

"I'm right here, son," Bayek says. His voice is breaking, and if there aren't tears on his face yet, he knows they must be there in his words.

"Where _are_ we?" Khemu asks, and he tries to sit up.

"No," Bayek says. He carefully maneuvers his free hand onto Khemu's shoulder, holding him down. "You need to stay in bed for a little while. There was an accident, do you remember?"

Khemu shakes his head. "Not really," he says. "Just… I remember we had a fight."

Bayek's stomach lurches.

"And you told me to go home but I was scared, and then…" Khemu whimpers. "It _hurt_ …"

"I know it did," Bayek says. "I know." He closes his eyes and tries not to think about that. "But you're going to get better, Khemu. And I'm sorry. For arguing with you, and trying to make you leave, and… I'm so sorry, Khemu. I'm so sorry."

Layla leaves at some point to get a doctor, and when she comes back she translates a long series of questions the doctor has about what how Khemu is feeling and where it hurts. Khemu is visibly intimidated by how alien the hospital looks, and by the presence of strangers. He's too nervous to talk directly to Layla, so the answer to every one of the doctor's questions is whispered into Bayek's ear, then passed on to Layla, who turns around and translates to the doctor.

When he leaves, she turns back to Bayek, smiling. "He says Khemu's doing great," she tells him. "Better than he expected."

"But he said he's still hurting a lot," Bayek points out, and puts his hand back on Khemu's shoulder to keep him from moving as he starts to squirm uncomfortably.

"Because he got _stabbed_ yesterday," Layla says, rolling her eyes. For the first time in years, Bayek doesn't mind the reference to Khemu's attack so much. Because for the first time, that's all it is. Just an attack, not a killing. "You've been almost killed enough times, Bayek, you know you don't just get up and walk off the next morning. Especially if you're eight."

"Well alright," Bayek allows, but he crosses his arms a little. So what if he wants Khemu back up and on his feet and healed _now_? Is that such a selfish thing for a father to want for his son? "But he'll be better soon, right?"

"Yes," Layla says. "The doctor says that as long as his condition stays stable, the machines can mostly be unplugged tonight, before he goes to bed. And he can come home—well, back to our base—tomorrow or the next day."

Less than a week, and Bayek will be able to take Khemu out of this place. Less than a day, and he'll be able to…

"Papo?" Khemu asks, clearly getting tired of Bayek and Layla's conversation. "Why are you so happy?"

And Bayek smiles at him, and says something light that makes Khemu laugh, and doesn't tell Khemu just how badly he's looking forward to holding him again.

-/-

True to the doctor's word, the Wires and Tubes come out later that day. The sun is setting outside the window when they start, but it's fully dark out by the time Khemu is totally free. The process had been complicated by the fact that Khemu is very clearly just starting to grasp the idea of. He panics a little with each new wire that comes out and machine that gets unplugged.

Bayek doesn't let go of his hand for even a second, which also doesn't speed things up any, but at least it seems to help Khemu calm down a little. And finally, the doctor declares that the last wire is out, that Khemu is doing well, that he'll be back in the morning.

And Bayek, doing what he's been waiting what feels like forever to do, sweeps Khemu out of bed and into his arms, and holds him tight as Khemu wraps his arms around his neck and clings. Bayek cries. Khemu cries, although he can't possibly understand how much this means for Bayek, or how long he'd thought this moment was impossible.

When the doctor comes to tell Bayek that he has to leave—visiting hours are over, apparently, and for some reason they think it'll be good for Khemu to spend the night alone—Bayek stubbornly continues to not speak English until they just give up and leave him alone. Good. Layla and Berg have gone back to the base to check in on and everyone and see if there are any more messages from Desmond, but Bayek feels fairly safe staying here with Khemu until he's well enough to be released. Senu's been banished from the hospital, which is the only really unfortunate part, but Layla's promised to look after her, and Bayek trusts them to watch each other. And he'll see her when Khemu is released, when he'll be able to bring his son back to their base full of armed and dangerous people that are all on their side.

Khemu gets tired early, and curls up on the edge of the bed, leaving room for Bayek to join him. Which he does. As Khemu's eyelids droop and he just starts to drift off, he asks, "But where are we?"

It's a question Bayek hasn't quite decided on an answer to, because it opens the door to so many other questions he doesn't want Khemu to ask. Someday he'll have to explain, about Juno, about the Hidden Ones, about the time travel. But that day doesn't have to be today, does it? Bayek can have just this one perfect night, can't he?

"It's called New York," he says, which is factually true while avoiding all the really important parts. "It's on the other side of the world from Siwa."

"Then why are we here?" Khemu asks. "When are we going home?"

Bayek takes a deep breath. "Home," he says carefully. "Is where the people you care about are. Home might have to be here for a while."

"But what about…"

Khemu looks up at him, blinking slowly, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. He doesn't finish his question, but Bayek understands what he's trying to say. Of course he's worried about his mother, why wouldn't he be? It's just that Bayek has no idea what to tell him. Aya is dead, she'd told him so herself on the day she left him and chose to start a new life as Amunet.

Amunet, who chose not to have a husband. Amunet of the Hidden Ones, no longer Aya of Siwa or Alexandria or anywhere else. Amunet, hard and cold, who might have any reaction in the world to seeing Khemu again. Bayek can imagine her kneeling down in front of him to hold him again, as easily as he can imagine her turning her back and walking away.

"She isn't here right now," he tells Khemu, who looks crestfallen. "But I am, Khemu, and…" He remembers, almost guiltily, that soon he'll have to go chasing after Juno. "And there are a lot of great people here too. When you're feeling better I'll take you back, and I'll introduce you to everyone."

"Okay," Khemu says, but he clings a little more tightly to Bayek as he says it. Bayek feels awful for him, far from home and without his mother, but he doesn't know what to say to make it better. Instead, he just holds his child as tight as he dares, until Khemu finally falls asleep.

It's midnight, or close enough, when Layla drops in through the window. Bayek has been sleeping lightly but he wakes all at once, tense in the moments before he recognizes Layla. Then he sees the look on her face, and tenses all over again. He extricates himself from Khemu as gently as possible, and climbs out of bed to face Layla.

"You found her?" he asks.

Layla nods. "Desmond did," she says. "I just got an email from him—Juno's with his ancestor Altair, in 1191. She's going after another apple."

"Why?" Bayek croaks. "Why _now_?"

There's no answer to that, of course, and Layla doesn't try to give one.

"I'll go in the morning," Bayek says. "As soon as he's awake and I can say goodbye."

"You could wake him now-"

"I won't," Bayek says. "I've waited years to have him back, and I can't give him up without just…" He takes a breath. "One night, Layla."

Silence settles between them for a moment. Bayek can tell that Layla's having a terrible idea, but she takes her time to think it over before saying anything out loud. "I'll go," she tells him at last. "Why not? We know I can do it now, and you can stay here with Khemu. I'll give Bayek the password for the email Desmond's sending messages to, so he can handle that. And you have your translator, you can take over helping out with everyone in the animi."

"I can't ask you to do that," Bayek says, although something in his stomach leaps just at the suggestion.

"Sure you can," Layla says. "Why not? You can take the next one."

And for now, at least, he can stay with Khemu. Until his son is back on his feet, and back safe at their base with them.

"Thank you," Bayek says, and means it more than he can possibly say. Then he adds, "Take Senu. She'll help you get there safely, and… I trust you to take care of her."

It's the highest praise he can think of at the moment, and by Layla's smile, she seems to recognize that.

-/-

So the next morning, while Bayek and Khemu sleep, Layla finishes explaining to Bayek that she'll personally gut him if he takes advantage of her absence to hurt Desmond, or any of the Assassins. She gets a brand new earpiece of Rebecca, one that will let her understand the thousand year old Arabic of Altair's time. She _does_ know modern Arabic, but a language can change a lot in a millennium, and the translator isn't going to hurt anything.

Then there's nothing else to do. She'll figure out the rest when she gets there, so Layla grabs the apple, waits for Senu to settle on her shoulder, and then takes them back in time.

 **-/-**

 **Next chapter: Altair, finally! A new ancestor!**


	13. Chapter 13

Desmond has been sleeping very lightly since his kidnapping—Vidic has a nasty habit of coming into his cell while he's asleep and just kind of standing over him, leering—but he thinks he'd have had a hard time sleeping tonight even without that.

Juno's at Masyaf. With his ancestor—with _Altair_. Even now that Desmond's met Bayek, and learned the real origin of the Assassins, he still thinks of Altair as the beginning of… sort of everything. He knows from long talks with Shaun that Altair is the first really influential Assassin they have decent records on. They know a lot about Altair's life, and the history of the Assassins after that, but _before_ Altair, before the Assassins were even called Assassins, there's only vague rumors. And of course, Altair had been the beginning of everything for Desmond—the beginning of his conversion to the Assassins, the beginning of his time in the animus, the beginning of the road that led to December 21st.

So he's not going to let Juno hurt Altair. Last night, the second Vidic and Lucy had left for the night, Desmond had bolted for the computer and fired off an email to Layla. He hadn't gotten an answer from her before he gave up waiting and collapsed into bed, but he's sure she's just busy getting Bayek ready to go back in time. That's the whole plan, and Desmond would honestly rather have her focused on that than wasting her time writing out an email to him.

He's already out of bed and dressed by the time Vidic sends Lucy into his cell to get him. If it had been up to him he'd have marched straight into the animus to try and get a glimpse of what's going to happen. As it is, he ends up almost sitting on his hands and biting his tongue to keep from making the two Templars suspicious. And then finally, _finally_ , Vidic snaps at him to get into the animus. Desmond can't even bring himself to _pretend_ to complain. He lies down on his back, tense as Vidic loads up the next memory.

The last thing he sees, before the memory corridor loads up around him, is an oddly considering look coming from Lucy. But there's no time to worry about that, so Desmond closes his eyes and focuses on his freefall, on becoming Altair.

-/-

Altair is in a poor mood as he rides back into Masyaf after yet another assassination on his road to redemption. For once, he's not looking forward to coming home and being able to report back to Al Mualim. This time, instead of just being able to tell his mentor that he's done what he was supposed to, and killed one of his targets, there's something else he's going to have to report. And it's odd enough that Altair is half convinced Al Mualim is just going to think he's making it all up—he's already on probation, and making up stories isn't going to make things any better.

(But they're _not_ stories, and he's _not_ making them up. There's a woman in Acre, almost larger than life, who can manipulate men's minds, and is asking questions about the artifact from Solomon's Temple, and there is something about her that makes the hair on the back of Altair's neck stand on end—he's very rarely afraid, of anything, but he _is_ afraid of her)

Al Mualim is not going to react well to his report. He's going to tell Altair that he'd imagined the threat he sees in this woman, and that she's probably not even after the artifact in the first place, because how could she know about it? Altair doesn't exactly have an answer for that, but he just… he _knows_. She's after the artifact, and she can't be allowed to get it, no matter what.

It's because of Altair's dread of facing his mentor with news like this, that he rides so slowly as he comes close to Masyaf. He knows the routes between Masyaf and the nearby cities like the back of his hand, and he knows that if he stops to rest in _that_ little town, and then pushes himself until he gets to just _this_ hill by noon, and so on and on with other landmarks, he can time it so he's always back home before night.

Today, though, with Altair lost in his thoughts and half hoping he won't have to face Al Mualim until tomorrow morning, Altair doesn't come close to Masyaf until well after dark. And in fact, he's so lost in thought that he doesn't notice the woman until it's almost too late. If anything, it's like—she's just appeared in front of him, like she's somehow just fallen right out of the sky. Only that can't be true. It's so dark out here on the road that Altair must have just missed her.

He gets off his horse, mostly because she's shaking her head as if dazed, and he needs her to move before he can keep riding.

" _Oh my God,"_ she says, in a language that Altair doesn't know. _"I can't believe I almost go runover by a horse. What even is today..."_ She manages to get up to her feet, and an eagle just… flies down to land on her shoulder. Altair frowns, and just manages to get a half decent look at her face—

-/-

Desmond desynchronizes as quickly as he possibly can, wrenching himself out of Altair's memories so abruptly that for a moment he doesn't know where or when or who he is. The only thought, echoing over and over again through his head—which _pounds_ and throbs like he's slamming it against a wall—is _she wasn't supposed to be there_.

Vidic and Lucy are both shouting at him, but even as Desmond's senses start to come back, he doesn't answer either of their questions. What the fuck went wrong? That was supposed to be Bayek in the past, not Layla—that had been the plan from the very beginning, and Layla… how is she even there? It shouldn't be possible, but even… well, obviously it is, because she's _there_ , but why would she have had to try? And why would Senu be there with her, instead of with Bayek?

The only possible explanation Desmond can think of is that something's happened to Bayek. He's hurt or dead or captured somewhere—maybe that would explain why Layla never answered his email last night…

He's on the ground now, sitting against the animus, staring blankly as the full magnitude of that conclusion hits him. On the one hand, they need Bayek to fight Juno. On the other hand, Desmond had _liked_ Bayek, and he's pretty sure he's just lost a friend.

Lucy crouches down in front of him. "Desmond," she says, in a voice far too quiet for Vidic to overhear. "Something just happened, and I need you to tell me what it is."

He almost laughs in her face, and even though he manages to hold himself back, something clearly shows in his face because Lucy's frown intensifies, and she leans closer.

"I _know_ you're hiding something," she hisses, low and urgent. "Desmond, I'm trying to help you but you're making that really hard." She hold her hand up, carefully hidden from Vidic, and folds her middle finger down. It's a sign of the Assassins, going back all the way to Altair's time and their missing fingers—or even farther back, maybe, because after all Bayek's missing _his_ finger too. Last time, that had completely fooled Desmond into thinking Lucy is on the Assassin's side. This time, he barely notices it. He's too worried about the fact that she's noticed he's hiding something. He'll have to do something about that, but later, after he figures out why Layla instead of Bayek is in the past with Altair.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he tells her, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm fine. I just need to go back in the animus."

"There's a reaction you don't often see," Vidic says. "Well, up you get then. And try not to desynchronize a second time, Mr. Miles, we _are_ on a schedule here…"

Desmond pauses on his way back into the animus, face carefully blank. Fuck Vidic's schedule. His friend might be hurt or worse, and he's worried about his stupid schedule. He forces himself to lie back on the animus, closes his eyes, and waits to synch back up with Altair.

His ancestor is still standing in front of Layla, trying to figure how she'd gotten there. Desmond really hopes he's not going to give up until she tells him, because Desmond's just itching for answers but Altair's the only one that can actually ask them right now.

"Where did you come from?" Altair asks.

"Places," Layla says, after a pause, clearly shaken from her fall and almost being run over by a horse. Desmond badly wants to reach out and steady her, but of course he's in Altair's body and not his own, and Altair doesn't know Layla at all. Judging by the vague impressions filtering from his mind into Desmond's, Altair is wondering whether Layla is crazy or just a nuisance.

"I don't know what you're saying," he informs her, and starts to move away.

Before he can get away from her, Desmond's hand bursts into flaming pain.

-/-

Altair pushes past the madwomen, trying not to think about how he could have _sworn_ she just appeared from nowhere in front of him. But all evidence points to her being someone completely unimportant, a passing madwoman or something, and Altair has enough to worry about with the report he's going to have to give Al Mualim.

He's barely gotten past her, when his left hand starts to burn. It's… almost a vague tingle at first, and Altair reaches over with his other hand to rub it absentmindedly. But the pain flares up into an intensity he doesn't know how to handle, and despite himself, Altair drops to one knee. The fire radiates up his arm, and for a second he thinks he's been stabbed or poisoned or both. Only this pain doesn't feel physical, but somehow more, and _other_.

(And he half thinks _well at least it_ _doesn't hurt as much as last time_ , before realizing that isn't his thought at all, it belongs to someone else-)

"Whoa!" the woman says, almost pouncing on him as she hurries to his side. "Hey, what the fuck—are you okay?"

Altair takes three long, deep breaths. With the first breath, the pain… fades. With the second, it occurs to him that this time, he'd understood exactly what she'd said. And with the third, Altair looks down at his hand and sees a small image burned into the side of his wrist. A feather. It's still glowing a gentle gold, not enough to be noticeable at a glance, but plain as day when he looks right at it.

For several seconds he stays where he is, frozen, staring. Then he shakes his head, as if emerging from a fog, and turns a glare on the woman. "What's your name?" he asks, stepping closer. "What did you do to me, and _why_?"

"I—oh _shit_." She presses her hand to her forehead, and then frowns at him. "Why does _everything_ have to be weird?"

"What?" He can understand what she's saying, sort of. The individual words don't mean a thing to him, but somehow or other the meaning seems to make its way straight into his head.

"Listen," she says, leaning forward slightly. "I'm looking for a woman—her name's Juno, and she's… tall, and angry—she thinks she's better than everyone, and she can make people do what she tells them. She's here for…" The woman gestures with her hands. "An artifact, about this big. Gold, sort of glows—"

A chill of foreboding runs through Altair. "Yes," he says. "I know her. There's something… not right about that woman."

"There's _nothing_ right about Juno," says the woman. There's a long pause, while the two of them study each other, each visibly weighing their next move. Altair has no idea what _she's_ thinking, but for his part he's curious. Nothing about this woman fits. She's dressed in a style Altair doesn't recognize—not quite foreign, just… other. And she clearly knows something about this Juno.

And somewhere deep in the back of his mind, there's a voice that isn't his whispering _trust her_. Confused, Altair reaches out after it, but it's no good. That single thought is all he gets before the whisper is gone.

"What's your name?" he asks at last.

She grins. "Layla."

Altair inclines his head in response. "Altair."

Layla still seems to be debating something with herself, but at last she nods. "I think we have a lot to talk about," she says, and Altair nods. He's talking to a woman that had appeared out of nowhere, his hand had burned with an invisible fire and left a glowing mark behind, and now there's a faint echo of someone else in his head. They _absolutely_ have a lot to talk about.

-/-

Desmond is deliberately hiding something from them, Lucy decides. Ever since he climbed back into the animus, things have been blurred, and the dialogue mostly inaudible. Lucy can still hear the odd word or two, but for the most part, she and Vidic have no idea what's going on between Altair and this woman. Lucy is _convinced_ that somehow, for some reason, Desmond is keeping the conversation to himself. Some of the previous subjects had been able to blur memories they wanted to keep private, but not until they'd been in the animus a lot longer than this.

And why would he _want_ to do that, anyway?

Vidic is busy cursing the animus, blaming the technology instead of Desmond, which is lucky for him, and Lucy doesn't choose to share her suspicions. Not until she has more information.

Desmond twitches in the machine, an involuntary muscle spasm in response to something Altair is doing in the past. His hand turns slightly with the movement, and Lucy's eyes fix on a small mark on his wrist. She moves closer, trying not to let Vidic notice, and frowns when she sees—that hadn't been there before, had it?

There's a very faintly glowing image of a feather burned onto Desmond's hand, identical to the one on Altair's.

 **-/-**

 **I'm a sucker for linking people together through the animus. I just can't help it, I needed to set up _some_ way for Desmond and Altair to connect...**


	14. Chapter 14

Layla can't get over how weird it is to sit here talking to Altair, carefully explaining everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks. He looks so much like Desmond—like, _unnervingly_ like Desmond, at least until Layla looks up at his expression. It's caught somewhere just below complete disbelief, which is just… it's… _weird_. It's fine if Altair doesn't believe her, because why should he? She's a stranger to him, and she's trying to convince him that time travel is real. But he has Desmond's face, and he's looking at her like she's crazy, and by the time Layla gets to the end of her story she's just relieved to be done. She sits back nervously, waiting for him to respond.

At some point during her story, both Layla and Altair had ended up on the ground, sitting on the side of the road a few feet a way from each other. When Layla finishes, Altair stands and starts pacing. "You sound insane," he informs her. "Everything you just told me sounds… impossible."

"I… well yea, I guess," Layla admits. "But—"

"But it's _true_ ," Altair says, and finally the pacing stops. He turns back to her, face awash in confusion. "There's no reason to believe you, but I know that it's true. I—" He cuts himself off abruptly, turning his wrist to look down at the fresh mark there. Layla can't even begin to figure out what's going through his mind, so she just sits and waits, holding her breath.

She's not going to make it to Juno alone. That hadn't really sunk in until she was actually _here_ , alone on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where she is or where Juno is or where the apple is. Bayek probably could have done it—he's done more than that in the past—but Layla is ashamed to admit to herself that she's feeling overwhelmed.

He turns back to Layla, and demands, "Who is he?"

Layla is still sitting on the ground as she watches him pace, and the abrupt about face to look down at her makes her feel slightly put off. "Who is who?" she asks. "What?"

Not the most intelligent reaction, but what else is she supposed to say to him? The question hadn't made any sense.

"There's something—" Altair pauses, turning his head slowly as if he's thinking, then says, "No. Definitely _someone_. Not something, someone—and he's sort of here too. And he believes you, and trusts you, and so now I'm… feeling that too." He looks utterly confused, now. And for the first time his mask drops from his expressions, and Layla gets a really good look at the real Altair—open and raw and as confused by all this as she expects him to be. "Who is he?" he asks again, quietly.

Layla takes a breath. What he's describing sounds a little like… he's not feeling Desmond, is he? It's the only thing she can think of, strange as it sounds. It shouldn't be possible, but it fits the facts and Layla is giving up on calling things _impossible._ "His name is Desmond," she says cautiously.

The name is barely out of her mouth when Altair is nodding—but his face has a slightly puckered, confused expression. Layla can see it plain as day on his face—he already knows that, but he doesn't know _how_ he knows it.

And neither does Layla, actually. Some kind of reverse bleeding effect? Desmond bleeding into Altair? Hopefully that doesn't mean Altair is going to start losing his mind the way some animus subjects have, because that's absolutely the last thing they need right now.

"So," she says, trying to make it sound like there's absolutely nothing weird about any of this. Maybe he'll just think this is normal in the future, if she's lucky, and just go with it. "So, we need to get to Juno, or—" She shakes her head. No, that's not the smartest idea. She knows how to fight because of her time spent as Bayek in the animus, but Bayek is definitely stronger than she is. He can follow Juno wherever she goes next, and take her on. "Never mind," she says aloud, for Altair's benefit. "Maybe not… we'll leave Juno for right now. But we need to take the apple away from him, into someplace that it'll be safe."

"Where?" Altair presses her, and Layla shrugs with one shoulder. She's been so focused on just finding Juno and getting the apple away before it's too late, she hasn't really considered what happens after that. Maybe, if she's going to time travel more from ow on (and is she? No idea yet), it might help if they both have an apple on their own.

Senu screeches from overhead, and Layla makes a face. They still need Senu to travel through time, because her eagle vision is what lets them navigate to the right year. Even if they get a second apple here, it's not going to do them much good.

"That's reassuring," Altair says, and his voice is so calm as he says it that Layla has to do a double take—she almost believes him, before she sees his expression of flat disbelief. How does Bayek do this? Just convince people that he's trustworthy and they should help him? For a second, a feeling of burning inadequacy threatens to overwhelm her, but Layla squashes it down. She's never been good with people, and it's never been important before now.

"It'll be fine," she assures Altair, doing her best to mimic Bayek's quietly confident air. Why couldn't she have gotten _that_ from the animus? She can speak ancient Egyptian and shoot an arrow, almost as well as Bayek can, but she can't get people to like her the same way. "We'll just get to the apple and take it before Juno tracks it down, and figure out what happens next after that."

For half a second, she doesn't think it's going to be enough to convince Altair. She can see him turning it over and over in his mind before, finally, he nods. "You are strange," he tells Layla, and she nods quickly. "But… Desmond—" Altair's face is unreadable as he stumbles a little over the English name. "Desmond trusts in you completely."

"I'm…"

"Tell me more," Altair says, whistling to his horse. "I'm not going to pretend I understand this completely, but if we're going to do this, I want to be well informed."

Layla nods, then hesitates as he mounts his horse and looks pointedly at her. She's never actually ridden a horse before, but _Bayek_ has, and she's just going to have to hope this is one of his skills that she picked up through the bleeding effect.

The horses never look this big in the animus. And she's almost positive they didn't have this many teeth. She tries to reassure herself that of course the horses look bigger in real life—she's a solid six inches shorter than Bayek, and in the animus she's looking at everything through _his_ eyes. This horse isn't bigger than Layla's used to—she's just smaller herself.

In the end Layla gets herself onto the horse easily enough, and Altair spurs the animal on. Overhead, Senu flies lazy circles through the night sky. They travel in silence for a while, until Layla decides to strike up a conversation. She'd rather talk about Juno than worry about the horse. "You've seen her," Layla says, as the horse walks on.

"Juno?" Altair asks.

"Yea," Layla says. "You said she was there in that city you just came from—"

"Acre."

Layla nods, although she's sitting behind Altair and there's no way he can see her. "What has she been doing since she got here?" she asks.

"Asking a lot of the same kinds of questions as you, actually," Altair says. He seems a little more at ease, talking like this. Maybe it's because they don't actually have to look at each other. Or maybe he's just happy being on the move. "About the apple, and anyone else that might be coming to look for it."

"Did she get answers?" Layla asks.

Altair shakes his head, and Layla grins. That has to be a good sign, right? "Most people don't care much about that thing from Solomon's Temple," he said. "Even if Kadar… even if he was killed over it, it's still just gossip, and that particular piece of gossip hasn't travelled from Masyaf to Acre yet."

"Good," Layla says, letting out a little breath of relief. " _Good_." So they have a little bit of time before Juno figures out where the apple is and how to stop her from getting to it.

After a little more riding, Altair says, "We're here. Masyaf. We should…"

But then Altair goes utterly silent. Layla looks up at last—she's been concentrating on the horse, trying to fight down the stupid, irrational _oh my god why are horses so huge_ feelings that still haven't gone away. And when she looks up, what she sees is Masyaf's front gates, rising up in front of them. On the other side, lie a collection of low buildings. Homes, and what looks like a market, scattered around the keep itself.

A few people are still out on the streets even at this hour, most of them obviously Assassins. They're dressed in the same white robes as Altair, and Layla isn't entirely surprised to see that Assassin business in Masyaf doesn't stop just because it's the dead of night. It's actually a little reassuring to see them there—they make Layla feel safer, oddly enough.

The problem isn't the Assassins. The problem is the other people on the streets. Layla can see a woman standing in the middle of a small square, gesturing as she speaks to the four or five people gathered in front of her.

"That's her, isn't it?" Altair asks. "The woman you're looking for. Juno."

"Yes," Layla says, and her stomach does a flip. "Listen… Desmond—"

"What about him?" Altair interrupts. He dismounts, and once Layla has followed his example, he ties the horse up at a stable just inside the gates without once taking his eyes off Juno and her little crowd in the distance.

"He's reliving your memories," Layla reminds him. "So he sees whatever you see, he hears what you hear—" This is weird. "And Desmond, you need to send an email out to Bayek. Berg's checking my messages while I'm back here, he'll make sure it gets to Bayek, so that's fine. Tell them what's going on and that…"

It's a little bit like seeing Altair's horse for the first time, and being surprised by how big he is, and by her own fear. Layla is surprised, again, by how badly she _does not want_ to have this confrontation with Juno. "Tell them," she says, in a voice that shakes. "That we have everything under control."

-/-

Desmond forces himself to desynch from the animus then, hoping as he does so that Altair won't feel the sharp spike of pain that lances through his head. He turns his head until he can get a glimpse at Lucy's computer, and is relieved to see it's after six. Vidic and Lucy will be leaving soon, and he'll have his chance to send Lucy's email out.

It seems to take them forever to leave. They keep fiddling with the settings on the animus, trying to get the memories to show more clearly. Desmond knows it's not going to work, but he's not going to tell them he's intentionally keeping himself a little separate from the memories. He doesn't _want_ them to know all the things Layla's been telling Altair.

Eventually they go, admitting defeat on trying to fix the animus. Desmond waits barely five minutes to make sure they're not coming back, and then hurries out to the computer to send his email.

 _From: censored_

 _To: censored_

 _Date: September 5, 7:09 PM_

 _Subject: Layla_

 _Bayek—_

 _I just got out of one of Altair's memories. He's with Layla (and Senu), and they just found Juno at Masyaf. She says everything's under control, but I don't know. Altair has no idea what the apple is capable of, and I think Layla's more nervous than she wants me and Altair to think._

 _I'm worried. I know we can't do anything, because they're in the past and we're stuck in 2012, but… she wanted you to know what was going on. And I want you to know that I'm worried. I'll let you know more when I've seen the next few memories._

— _Desmond_

When the email is sent, Desmond just sits there for a long time. He worries about Layla and Altair, in the past with Juno. He worries about Bayek, who was supposed to be the one in the past, before Layla ended up going in his place.

Finally, feeling no less worried than he was when he sat down, Desmond shuts the computer down and goes to bed. He can't imagine he'll get much sleep, but it's better than sitting up worrying.

There's no windows in Desmond's cell, and when the lights go out for him to sleep, it gets pitch black in there. For a while he just lies there, staring at the darkness, until he realizes the feather that's been burned into his hand is still glowing. It's dim light in a dark place, but it makes Desmond feel a little better. Altair's still there in the past, fighting. He and Layla have that in common, they're too stubborn for their own good. There's no way they're going to let Juno have what she wants.

 **-/-**

 **There are some chapters that just come out so easy, and then some chapters are just a hot mess all the way through. I ended up rewriting this about three times and I'm still not totally happy with it, but I think this is as good as it's going to get. Feel free to let me know if you like this, if you didn't like it, whatever. :)**


	15. Chapter 15

**So I'm still trying to decide how the showdown between Layla and Altair and Juno is going to go, but I didn't want to just not write anything... so have a self indulgent Khemu chapter instead. Layla and Juno next chapter, I promise. :)**

Khemu wakes up in the middle of the night, alone on the pile of blankets he'd fallen asleep on last night. Only when he fell asleep, his papo had been there with him, holding him tight, like when Khemu was little.

He grins a little as he stands up, pulling a sheet up and over his shoulders—it gets cold here at night, and he's shivering a little. Then after a second, Khemu pulls the sheet over his head too, so it falls just above his eyes. The people here, some of them anyway, walk around in white hoods like this all the time. Khemu's sure it _means_ something, even if no one will explain it to him.

It's kind of fun, tiptoeing around the dark room with the sheet over his head. Everyone's asleep up here, and after a little bit of sneaking around, Khemu heads downstairs to see if his dad's there. He edges down the steps one at a time, testing for the edge with his toes before he puts his full weight down. It's dark, and he can't _quite_ see where he's going, and he doesn't want to trip and fall over his sheet.

Eventually he makes it downstairs, which is mostly empty except for all the computers and—all the way on the other end—Khemu's dad talking to someone. He grins in relief, and trots across the room, past the rows of animi (he doesn't know what that means, he just knows the word because everyone keeps saying it).

"Khemu," his dad says, holding an arm out. He's sitting down, so when Khemu leans up against him, and lets his dad wrap a strong arm around his shoulders, Khemu's head only comes up to about his dad's shoulder. It's nice though. It makes him feel safe, which is why he'd come down here in the first place. "What are you doing down here?"

"You left," Khemu accuses. "I didn't want to be by myself. Can I stay here with you?"

There's a short pause, as his dad and the other man—his name is Berg, but Khemu doesn't know much more than his name—look at each other. Berg says something, and apparently it boils down to yes, because Khemu isn't sent away. "You have to stay quiet though," his dad tells him, and Khemu nods seriously. "We need to figure something out."

"I'll be good," Khemu promises, and settles in.

He can only understand one half of the conversation—his dad's half. Berg doesn't speak Egyptian, but somehow the two adults seem like they're understanding each other perfectly.

"There's really nothing else in the email?" his dad asked.

Berg answers.

"I know, I just—I'm worried that she won't be able to face Juno, and without Senu and the apple we won't be able to get her help."

Berg snaps something, sharp and loud, and Khemu jumps a little. Then, half a second later, like an echo, he hears a second voice say, _"I know_ ," from apparently nowhere. Interested now, Khemu spends a while trying to figure out where the voice is coming from, before he finally finds the little… it looks like a piece of metal, stuck up in his dad's ear. Every time Berg says something, the ear speaker repeats it, but in Egyptian.

Pleased with himself for figuring this out, Khemu yawns and makes a show of squirming closer to his dad, so that now he's actually close enough to hear the translations.

"You should have gone instead of Layla," Berg is saying.

"You know why I didn't," Khemu's dad says. "You have your child to think of too. What would have done the same thing if Elina was the one that—" He cuts off, glancing down at Khemu. Khemu quickly looks away, pretending not to be paying attention. But this is that _thing_ , isn't it? That big, bad _thing_ that his dad won't tell him about, even though Khemu's pretty sure it's all about him. And then there's the way his dad never lets him out of his sight, and hugs him all the time, and…

Khemu's pretty sure he's done something wrong, to make his dad worry about him so much. Maybe, if they don't realize he can hear what Berg is saying, he'll learn something about it.

"Layla's never had to do something like this before," Berg says. "She's a tech, who just happened to stumble into the Assassins. I won't deny that she seems to care about your Brotherhood, but the only experience she has is through you, in the animus. She might know what you know, but she's never done what you do. Now her first fight is going to be against Juno?"

"She can handle it."

"We can't possibly know that for sure," Berg snaps. "For all we know, she'll break at the first sign of trouble."

"She won't," Khemu's dad says, and his tone is so stern that Khemu is almost scared of him for a second.

"You never know what someone will do under pressure until they're tested," Berg says. "This is Layla's test."

"She's not going to let us down."

By now, Khemu is straining so hard to hear that he can't believe they haven't noticed yet. But they're so intent on their conversation, they don't seem to be noticing much of anything else.

"Next time," Berg says sternly. "You go."

Khemu doesn't have to see his dad to know he's smiling a little. It's right there in his voice. "I didn't realize you had that much faith in _me."_

"That's not it," Berg says, scowling a little. "You've proved yourself a capable fighter, even if you are an Assassin."

"Hidden one."

"Same difference. My point is that you can fight and kill, when it comes to it. If we could defeat Juno by being extremely sarcastic and leaving rude cross stitch patterns for her to find, it would only make sense to give that job to Layla."

"What does she do with… cross stitch?"

Berg sighs. "Never mind. Just promise me that—assuming Layla gets through this fight with Juno—you'll go to the next one."

Khemu feels his dad's grip on his shoulders tighten for a second. "I have responsibilities here now."

"Your son is not more important than all of the people in the world that Juno puts in danger. Thousands—millions or _billions_ of people are at risk if Juno gets her way, and you can't sit back and let her take the artifacts just to protect your son. He's just not that important."

"He is to me."

Khemu straightens up a little, smiling under his sheet-hood.

Berg pauses a little before answering, obviously thinking over the best thing to say. Finally, more slowly, he speaks. "I can't begin to imagine what it's like to watch your child die."

Khemu's smile slips a little. There's something about the way Berg says that, all serious and slow, that makes him worry.

"You cut a path through Egypt after your boy died," Berg says. "And I can't say I wouldn't do something similar if I lost Elina. But that's all undone now, and you aren't just a killer anymore, and if you're going to do this, you need to really step up and _lead_. You're better suited for this and you know it."

"Berg."

"Your son was dead," Berg says harshly, and although his voice is quiet, the words _ring_ in Khemu's ears. "And losing him changed your life. Getting him back doesn't mean you go back to what you were, so man up and _fight_ with us."

"That's enough," Khemu's dad says. "Enough talk about… death."

"He can't understand me anyway," Berg says dismissively. "Bayek—"

There's more after that, but Khemu isn't listening anymore. He slips out of his dad's grasp, mumbling that he's tired, even though he isn't. He feels cold all over as he drags himself back upstairs, into the bathroom. It's his favorite room in the building, mostly because he thinks it's funny that people here do that kind of stuff _inside_. But right now, he's here for the mirror over the sink, bigger and clearer than any mirror he's ever seen before.

He has to stand on his toes to get a really good look at his reflection, leaning over the sink and pressing hard enough for the edges to leave dents on his forearms. But no matter how hard he stares at the wide eyed boy in the mirror, he still looks alive.

Khemu rocks back onto his heels, and presses his palms to his chest so he can feel his pounding heart. He doesn't look dead or feel dead, but Berg had _said_ so, and his dad hadn't even argued. So is there something wrong with him? Why doesn't he remember dying? He doesn't want to remember dying, but it feels like something he should know about, if it happened to him.

Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and Khemu slowly slides down to the ground, and pulls the sheet over his head. He doesn't _want_ to be dead.

-/-

When Bayek finally finishes his talk with Berg, he goes upstairs to bed, only to find Khemu missing. There's a heart stopping moment of fear, before it occurs to Bayek to go check the other rooms. Khemu won't have just vanished—Bayek's just been overprotective since he got his son back.

It takes him a little while to find Khemu huddled on the floor of the bathroom, hiding, and after a moment of confusion, Bayek feels something soft inside him break. He closes the door to give the two of them privacy, then squats in front of his son and slowly pulls the sheet down. The sight of Khemu's tear streaked face, starkly illuminated by the overhead lightbulbs, burns itself into Bayek's mind.

He's doing this wrong. Getting Khemu back is beyond a dream come true, but Bayek is still failing him.

It's the only thought going through his mind as he eases forward and puts his arm around Khemu. It's a little reassuring when his son presses up against him, but since he still won't stop crying, it doesn't make Bayek feel all _that_ much better.

"Tell me what's wrong," he says. "Khemu, tell me."

It takes a while, and a lot more cajoling, as Bayek rubs Khemu's back and tries to soothe him. But eventually it's enough, and Khemu chokes out, "Am I dead, Papo?"

" _No_ ," Bayek says. "No, Khemu, why would you say that?"

"That's what he said downstairs," Khemu says. "I heard it." He reaches up with one arm, and at first Bayek can't figure out what he's pointing to, and then he realizes it's his ear piece. Slowly, he pulls it out, looks at it, and then slips it into his pocket. He's going to have to get someone to show him how to lower the sound.

"You shouldn't have heard that," Bayek says. "And Berg shouldn't have been talking about it."

"I don't want to be _dead_!" Khemu wails, and Bayek holds him closer.

"You're not," he says, then pauses. He'd been hoping he wouldn't have to have this conversation with Khemu, or at least that he could wait to have it until his son is much older. It looks like it's going to happen now, on the floor of this bathroom, with Khemu hidden like a ghost in the folds of his sheet.

So he tells the story as gently as he can. That in another time, Khemu _had_ been killed, but that timeline doesn't exist anymore—Layla had gone back to the moments before Khemu died, and brought him here to a time where he could be healed. "You are _not_ dead," he says. "Look at me—I'm not lying to you. I never will."

It seems to ease Khemu at last, and he almost crawls onto Bayek's lap as his eyes start to close. Bayek lifts him up, carrying him back to where they sleep.

"What did he want you to do?" Khemu asks.

"You remember I told you Layla had to go back in time on a mission?"

Khemu nods.

"I was going to go," Bayek says. "But I'd rather be here, with you."

He eases Khemu into bed, and lies down next to him.

"No," Khemu says. "Papo, you need to save people too, like Layla saved me. Isn't that what medjay are supposed to do?"

"I wouldn't be here with you," Bayek says quietly. "I might get hurt, or stuck in the past. And then I wouldn't ever be here for you again."

Khemu looks at him, then closes his eyes. "You'll come back," he says, like it's a fact. "You should do what your friend says. I want you to help people."

Bayek watches as Khemu finally falls asleep, and sighs to himself. Honestly, he'd like to have been the one that went back to Desmond's ancestor. He still believes Layla can handle herself, whatever Berg says, but sitting around and doing nothing makes Bayek feel restless and uncomfortable. "I'll go next time," he promises Khemu, curling protectively around his sleeping form. "As soon as Layla comes back."

Soon, hopefully.

Safe, hopefully.

 **-/-**

 **I am going on vacation starting tomorrow, and I'll be gone for a week. I will have my computer with me, so it's possible I'll be able to post, but I'll be busier than usual and no promises. Sorry in advance!**


	16. Chapter 16

Layla's mind seems to have gone very cold and clear, like a knife blade, and she takes a deep breath, filling her lungs up with air, and then slowly lets it out again. They have no plan, no idea how to stop Juno from getting the apple. Layla still isn't entirely sure that Altair grasps the extent of what Juno can do with the apple—then again, maybe she doesn't either. She'd only seen Juno for a few minutes at the temple, there might be more tricks up the woman's sleeve that Layla just isn't expecting.

"Right," Altair says. "That's her. What are we waiting for?"

She shakes herself out of her fear, or at least as much as she can, and turns to Altair. "We need—one of us needs to get the apple and take it away from where she can find it."

"I'll do it," Altair says. "It's with Al Mualim, and it'll be hard enough for me to get it away without him realizing, but at least I'm known there—you'd be noticed the second you walked in."

Shit. That leaves Layla to try and… and deal with Juno, lead her away or something. "Okay," she says. "Then—go. And thank you. You didn't have to listen to me, or believe me—"

"Later," Altair says, and dashes away. Layla watches him go until he's out of sight, steeling herself. Then she turns back toward Juno, expecting to see her still standing there with her little cluster of followers. But Juno's not there anymore, and suddenly Layla feels a cold hand against her cheek. It's her. It's Juno.

"You've come a long way, for someone so small and insignificant," Juno whispers.

Layla's not sure if it's Juno or just regular old fear that keeps her rooted in place, but either way her legs feel like they've turned to stone. She swallows, and says, "I am _not_ insignificant."

Juno, insultingly, seems amused by this. "Humans always have such a self-inflated opinion of themselves," she says idly. "I don't know where it comes from—you're like flies, really. Here and gone in the blink of an eye, and yet somehow you still insist on trying to leave your mark on the world. No matter how many times I see it, I never understand it."

"You don't understand us," Layla says, as Juno walks slowly around, until they're standing face to face. "You—"

"Who are you?" Juno asks. "You're not an Assassin—"

"I'm working on it," Layla says, which is probably the worst comeback she could have thought up.

"You're not a Templar," Juno continues. "And yet… here you are. You were in the temple too, weren't you?" She reaches forward, and before Layla can react at all, Juno has pressed her chill palm to Layla's forehead. "Follow."

It's a simple word, but to Layla it seems to grow fangs, to drill into her head through Juno's fingers, little worms crawling into Layla's thoughts until it doesn't matter that she _knows_ what Juno has done, until it doesn't matter that she doesn't _want_ to follow. When Juno pulls her hand away (fingers trailing against Layla's forehead), Layla follows.

-/-

Altair does not have many friends in the keep these days. His demotion and disgrace have stripped away any respect that his Brothers might have showed him once, and more often than not, Altair is left alone.

For once, he's grateful for that. It's still early, hours before dawn, but there are always a few guards or sleepless Brothers in the keep's halls. Tonight, as is becoming usual, the guards see Altair, recognize him, and pointedly look away. He's allowed to be here, it is his home, but he's not exactly _welcome_.

Today, for the first time since his demotion, Altair truly and completely doesn't mind the reaction. He's on a mission, and he doesn't need people watching him while he heads into Al Mualim's chambers.

Getting close isn't hard. Even getting into the mentor's rooms isn't really difficult. Al Mualim himself is asleep, and no one else is nearby. Altair creeps inside, trying not to feel like a traitor for this.

A cursory search of the room reveals nothing, so Altair grits his teeth and dives in for a deeper examination. He feels terrible, doing this to the man that's practically raised him, ever since his father died. There's going to be consequences, when Al Mualim eventually finds the apple missing, and he had never been able to lie convincingly to the mentor—Altair sometimes thought the man knew him better than he knew himself.

He might be expelled from the Assassins for this.

The thought bites at Altair like a viper, with enough of a sting to stop him dead in his tracks as he roots through the mentor's desk. It's one thing to help Layla fight back against someone that Altair has never really liked the sound of. But risking his relationship with Al Mualim and what standing he has left with the Assassins…

He forces himself to keep looking, even as his movements slow down and his thoughts speed up. He's still working his way through _what do I do, what do I do_ when he opens a drawer, and the apple is right there, shining dully at him even through the thin cloth it's been wrapped in.

Altair lifts the cloth up and away from the artifact, and the apple rolls free. He reaches out, grips it—

There's a shimmer in the air, and for a second time seems to slow. As Altair reaches his hand out for the apple, he sees what _almost_ looks like his reflection. Another man, with the same face as Altair's, but dressed in wildly different clothes, and with an expression of fierce determination that could not be more different from how Altair feels just now.

"Desmond," he says.

Desmond almost looks surprised for a second—clearly he hadn't been expecting this meeting either—and then the determination is back. "I know it's hard," Desmond says. "I _know_ it is. But we need you."

Altair swallows. "I'm not afraid," he says.

Maybe Desmond can tell that he is, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he just says, "Trust me, Altair. Please trust me."

Which he doesn't really need to say, because Altair _does_ trust him.

And then the vision fades. Time clicks back into its normal speed, and the light that had made up Desmond's body rushes forward toward Altair. He braces, half expecting a blow, but the essence of Desmond passes through him and into him as painlessly as a summer breeze. He is aware, suddenly, of Desmond's presence more clearly than he ever has been before. When he looks down at the mark on his wrist it's blazing like the sun, as if to confirm that Desmond _is_ here, he _is_ listening, he _is_ here to help.

 _Of course I am,_ Desmond says, his voice much more determined and much more _clear_ than it has ever been before.

Altair picks up his pace, and hurries out to meet up with Layla.

-/-

There are more of Juno's… friends, or followers, or whatever they are, than there had been when Layla last looked down in this direction. She's been… spreading, apparently, while Layla had been distracted by Altair. _Spreading._ It felt like some kind of horrible sickness, reaching into her mind, and eating her all up inside.

She's failing. She's already failed.

"I'm a little disappointed they sent someone like you, to be honest," Juno says dismissively. "I was expecting a little bit more of a fight."

Which is when Senu dives abruptly downward, claws extended, an angry shriek echoing against the nearby buildings. There's just half a moment when Layla assumes the eagle is heading for Juno, but then there are wings flapping in her face, claws extended and scratching at her hands, and Layla throws her hands up defensively, stepping away from Senu—

The tendrils of control Juno had buried in Layla's mind snap, as if Senu's talons had broken them as easily as they'd scored across Layla's face. She can feel sharp lines burning over her nose and one cheek, blood starting to drip, but she can also feel the freedom of not having Juno in her mind any more.

Layla turns and runs, because she's only ever seen Juno take control of people she's physically touching, and she doesn't want to _ever_ be close enough to Juno again for her to do that. She gets about halfway to the keep before she almost runs into Altair, coming the other way. He's holding the apple and her heart leaps. That's their way out of here.

"We can use that to time travel," she tells Altair. "We can get out of here, right, and regroup, and…" And someone better than her can come back and fix everything she's messed up. "Give me the apple. I can get us out of here."

Altair gives her a long, contemplative look, a look they _really_ don't have time for because Juno is still coming, and then shakes his head. "No," he says. "We fix this here and now."

" _How_ …?"

But Altair doesn't answer her question. He just starts walking again, and Layla has no choice but to follow behind him, hoping he has an idea.

-/-

These are his people, and Altair is not going to abandon them. When he gets back to where he and Layla had seen Juno the first time, Altair is disgusted to find that the number of people—Masyaf's villagers, mostly, although he also sees one or two Assassins among the crowd—has at least doubled.

He stops halfway down the street, and raises the apple pointedly. "You're not getting this," he says, letting his voice carry. From this far away, he can just barely make out Juno's peeved expression, and he smiles grimly before continuing. "Get out of this place and this time. Go after another relic in another time—you're not getting this one." He looks back at Layla, and nods at her, then levels another glare at Juno. "And when you get to that time, there's going to be someone else to tell you _no_ , and to stop you."

Juno opens and closes her mouth several times, then makes a noise that can best be described as a snarl. Her body starts to glow, until Altair has no choice but to close his eyes and turn away. When the glow fades, and he looks back, Juno is gone. Her minions are on the ground, looking dazed and confused but not much worse for the wear.

"Thank you," Layla says quietly, and Altair turns around to look at her.

"Thank _you_ ," he says, after a pause. "I would never have known she was here or that she was a threat if you hadn't come. None of us would have known. She might have taken control of all of us, and gotten the apple."

"But I didn't do anything to help," Layla says quietly.

Altair shrugs. "You will next time."

"Next time," Layla says. "I don't think Juno's going to underestimate us."

"Then you'll try harder."

Layla takes a deep breath. She doesn't look entirely convinced, but at least she's not arguing with him. "Thanks," she says. "I'll… just thanks. Take care of yourself, Altair." She holds her hand out for the apple, but Altair is suddenly reluctant to give it to her. He knows that she wants to take it back with her to the future, but he's really been hoping that he'd be able to get it back to Al Mualim without him noticing. He can only get into so much trouble.

 _Keep it,_ Desmond says. _You're not done with it yet—tell Layla she can come back and get it after…_

He cuts himself off abruptly, and Altair frowns. _What aren't you telling me?_ he asks.

 _Your future,_ Desmond says, and that's fair enough because Altair doesn't really want to know what's going to happen to him. _When everything's over, someone will come back and pick the apple up from you. If that's okay._

 _It's fine_ , Altair says, and tucks the apple back into a pouch on his belt. "I'm going to hang onto this," he tells Layla, who raises her eyebrows. "Just for a little while."

 **-/-**

 **Hey, look at me, writing on vacation! Not very well, but at least some writing happened?**


	17. Chapter 17

Desmond can't believe how relieved he is when Layla and Altair chase Juno off, and Altair's timeline mostly stutters back into the same rhythm he remembers from is first time through the animus. Once Layla takes her apple and Senu and goes back to the future—the present, to Desmond—it just gets so much easier when he doesn't have to hide everything from Lucy and Vidic.

So Altair continues on his quest for redemption. He kills his targets, he returns to Al Mualim, he learns that his mentor is a traitor, and he fights him to save his Brotherhood.

When the apple projects its map of the world out for everyone to see, Vidic and Lucy finally let Desmond out of the animus, and leave the room to talk it over. Desmond knows he should just sit there and wait for night before he risks sending an email, but this feels like a triumph, and that makes him reckless.

 _From: censored_

 _To: censored_

 _Date: September 7, 2012, 3:29 PM_

 _Subject: Done_

 _Layla—_

 _I guess you're probably back by now, hopefully safe. I just finished with Altair's memories, and everything turned out okay. Thank you for helping with him and Juno, I know it must have been way harder for you to be there than for me to have to watch._

 _It's all over now, I'm done with Altair's memories and it's safe for you or Bayek to go back and pick up his apple. Sorry for making you wait, but I think history needed to play out the way it did last time. Altair's just too important to the history of the Assassins, and… maybe it's selfish, but he's my ancestor and that makes him family. I think he needed to go through all that, to learn everything he needed to._

 _Assuming everything goes the same as it did last time, Lucy should be taking me to Shaun and Rebecca soon so I can go through Ezio's memories. It should be a little easier to get you messages from there._

— _Desmond_

He pauses a second, long enough to add the exact date, then hits send and starts to navigate out of the email program. It's kind of a whole process, because Desmond has to erase any signs that he'd been sending covert emails in the first place. Layla had talked him through how to do it, and even after all the emails Desmond's sent during his time here, he still has to mutter the instructions like a song under his breath as he goes through it all.

"Desmond? What are you doing?"

He starts and spins around, only halfway through the process, as he hears Lucy's voice behind him. She's standing in the doorway, arms crossed, looking at him like he's done something wrong. His look is so overwhelmingly judgmental that Desmond's almost tempted to snap at her that _she's_ the traitor, not him.

 _Patience_.

The word seems to echo in Desmond's mind from somewhere far away, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside him. It… as weird as it is to even think it, the word sounds like Altair. Which either means the bleeding effect, or… yea. When Desmond surreptitiously tilts his arm so he can see his own wrist, the mark there is glowing.

 _Altair?_

Silence. Well… maybe this isn't the best time to stand here and try and figure it out anyway.

"Desmond," Lucy says again. "What are you doing?"

He takes a deep breath, and tries to sound uncertain and confused as he answers. "I… look, I was just… I need some more information about what you guys are going to do to me. I'm desperate here, Lucy." He tries to sound convincing, but he doesn't think Lucy looks entirely convinced. She definitely hesitates for longer than he's comfortable with before walking forward, hand in front of her chest, one finger folded down.

"I'm on _you_ side," she says, and Desmond almost rolls his eyes at that. She's not even that good of an actress, how could he possibly ever have been fooled by her?

Never mind, he knows the answer to that question. He'd been terrified and confused and desperate, and Lucy had offered him a way out. Of course he'd jumped at the chance.

"You're an _Assassin_?" he demands, and this time apparently he's a little more convincing because she looks pleased at the reaction. "Seriously?"

"Yes," she says. "And—Desmond, you're right to be nervous." She heads to the computer he'd been using to email Layla, and Desmond's eyes dart to the screen—he hasn't finished deleting his history, but there's nothing incriminating showing there now. Hopefully it'll be enough. "Vidic doesn't have anything good planned for you, and if we're going to get you out of here, we need to do it now."

"Get me out—where are we going?"

"To the Assassins," Lucy says. "Come on."

" _Now_?"

"It might be our only chance," she says, and hurries for the door. Desmond jogs after her, feeling so calm he's almost detached. He knows they're not in any real danger here. Lucy's a Templar, this escape is something they sanctioned, and there's no chance they're going to be caught, no matter how slowly or loudly they move.

The last time, Desmond had kept up a stream of anxious chatter as he ran after Lucy, eyes darting around the room for the first sign of anyone following them. This time, he keeps his eyes focused firmly on Lucy. She's the only real threat here.

He almost argues when she insists on shoving him into the trunk of her car. It's—well, he just doesn't trust her enough to lock him up like that. In the end, it's only by forcing himself to remember she doesn't want him dead _yet_ that he can force himself to hop in, and let her close the trunk on top of him.

Desmond wiggles around in the trunk, trying to get into a decently comfortable position. Hopefully things will be better with the Assassins, because he doesn't think he can take much more of this.

-/-

"Desmond's okay," Layla announces from her position in front of her laptop. "He's done with Altair and he sent the date we can get the apple from.

"Perfect," Bayek says. He's sitting with Khemu a few seats away, as Khemu speeds through some iPad game that's supposed to help kids with English. Rebecca had found it a couple days ago, and Khemu had taken to it like a fish to water. Layla isn't sure how much English he's learning, but he's definitely learning how to use iPads extremely quickly. "Do you want to go back to get the apple, since you're more familiar with that time?"

"I… I mean…" She's not sure she would have said this to anyone else— _maybe_ Desmond, but only maybe—but with Bayek, it's easier. "I messed things up really bad," Layla admits, dropping her voice. "And I don't want to make it any worse. I think… it'd be better if I stayed here with the techs from now on. I could do a lot more good _here_ than _there_. I shouldn't time travel anymore, I'm… not good at it."

Bayek looks at her for a long second, then shakes his head. "No," he says.

"What?"

"No."

"I heard you," Layla says. "I just don't understand what you mean."

Khemu pipes up, surprising Layla for a second. In his jeans and Pokemon T-shirt (with a good half of the people here being techs and therefore nerds, the poor kid never really had a chance), with an iPad on his lap and purple headphones snaking into his ears, Layla had actually forgotten for a second that he could understand their conversation in Egyptian. "He means you can't give up on something when you're not good at it," he says. "You have to jump, even if you're afraid."

Bayek puts a hand on his son's head, smiling fondly. Then he looks up at Layla. "He's right, you know," he says. "Go back to Altair. Take his apple, and bring it here. Juno's already been driven away, and she has no reason to go back. You'll be safe there, and you need to… to get back on the horse."

"But—"

"No buts. Go."

Layla really doesn't want to, but she's at least self aware enough to realize that Bayek—and Khemu—are probably right about what she needs to do. "Okay," she says. "Okay, I will, but—you still need to take the next one."

Bayek carefully maneuvers himself around Khemu, who hops up onto his dad's seat as soon as its free, curling up around the iPad, humming quietly to himself. Bayek walks to the drawer where they keep the apple, pulls it out, and walks back to Layla. He hands it to her, and for a moment they hold the apple together, hands almost touching. Layla looks up, into Bayek's face, and it's like looking into the face of a brother, someone that's just going to be there for her, no matter what. She trusts him.

"I will go next time," he says quietly. "Because it's my turn, because my son wants me to be a hero, and because I am willing to do that for you. But you will go this time, because this is your turn, because you are a hero too, and because you need to be willing to do it."

He lets go of the apple, slowly, and Layla—who has never felt like a hero before and certainly doesn't now—pulls it close to her chest. "Okay," she says. "Okay, Bayek. I'll do it."

"I knew you would," he says, giving her a brief smile. "And while you're in the past, with Altair…" He steps back. "I have something I want to do here."

"Which is?"

"We're in over our heads," Bayek says. "We're running blind, and I don't think that my first run in with Juno is going to go all that much differently than yours. What we need now is someone that knows what's going on. We need a Sage. Berg says he knows one. I'm going to see what's going on with that."

He'd also said the Sage wouldn't be able to help them, if Layla's remembering correctly. But he still has a better job than the one she's just been given—at least in her opinion. So she just nods, grips the apple tightly, and calls for Senu to come help her into the past.

 **-/-**

 **I'm so excited to bring a certain Sage into the story :)**

 **And because not everyone knows about him, here's a minor preview:** **assassinscreed -dot- wikia -dot- com/wiki/Elijah (** **Or go to the Assassin's Creed Wiki and just search Elijah, that might just be easier because APPARENTLY FF.N still doesn't trust us to put external links into fics.)**

 **Final note, to all the people that left reviews on the last chapter saying they're also on vacation: Have a happy vacation! :)**


	18. Chapter 18

"The Sage's name is John Standish," Berg tells Bayek. "And he's an asshole."

The two of them are in the cramped warehouse kitchen, facing each other over the top of a tiny, circular table. There's not much in here, apart from an underpowered microwave and an overused coffee machine, so Berg is confident no one else will be bothering them at this time of the day. It's late enough in the afternoon that even the most caffeine dependent Templars and Assassins probably won't be coming in for a coffee fix, so it's the safest place in the warehouse to have a private conversation. Bayek, at least, is still speaking a language that Berg needs an earpiece to understand, and no one else but Layla and Khemu can speak—but Berg will be using English, and he'd rather not be overheard.

"But does he know things," Bayek urges, leaning (carefully, around the coffee stains) further over the table. "About Juno? About her people?"

"No," Berg says. "I don't think he ever did. The man was insane and an idiot. He worked in IT, at Abstergo, and died after he tried to kill an employee for no apparent reason."

"But he still might know _something_ ," Bayek urges, and Berg resists the urge to roll his eyes. Whatever Sages Bayek met in Egypt must have been really exceptional examples, because the ones Berg's aware of never had that kind of wisdom.

"Can't you just go back to the ones that told you how to time travel in the first place?" he asks. "If you need more information, that's probably the place to look."

Bayek shakes his head. "They told me everything they knew before I left," he says. "We need… well, we need more."

"The Sages in this era aren't going to be able to get you anything more," Berg says skeptically.

"Sages?" Bayek repeats. "As in more than one Sage?"

Berg sighs, reluctantly. "Possibly," he says. "I… know about the one that I told you about. Standish. But I also heard rumors about another Sage."

After a quiet minute, Berg asks, "Why are you so reluctant?"

To Berg's own surprise, he finds himself thinking about answering. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have believed he could trust an Assassin with information like this, but a lot of things have changed. Just this morning, he'd passed an Assassin historian and the head of Abstergo's Historical Research Division arguing something incredibly specific and boring about the American Civil War, and the night before he'd found a Templar giving advice to an Assassin about avoiding the Bleeding Effect. Things are changing. The people here are different than they were before. More trusting of each other.

"The Sage is a child," Berg says at last. "Whatever else he is, he deserves to be protected for a few more years."

"Oh," Bayek says, leaning back in visible disappointment.

"Let's see." Berg leans back as well, crossing his arms. "From what I remember, he was born in 2005. That would make him… about seven years old. Almost as old as your son." And not much younger than the Elina that Berg had left behind in 2017, either.

"A child," Bayek agrees. He glances down at his hands, thinking, then says, "I'd still like to talk to him."

Berg groans. "Bayek—"

"I would _never_ do anything to harm the boy," Bayek says. "Never. I've killed men before for raising a hand to a child, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Berg, I swear to you in the name of all the gods that I will not hurt the Sage."

Berg gives a little snorting laugh at that. There's just something so odd about a man in the twenty first century invoking Ancient Egyptian deities for a promise. But he knows they're important to Bayek, he knows the man has built a small shrine behind the warehouse, and he visits almost every day. It's as good a promise as he's going to get from Bayek.

"Alright," he says. "I think I'd be able to find him. Assuming he's still living in the same place now as he will be in 2015. That's when the Templars first found him. If he's not there, then I'm sorry. It's the best I can offer."

"And more than you wanted to give," Bayek says. "Thank you."

"We'll leave this afternoon," Berg says. "As soon as I've had a chance to tell people we're going. The boy lives in New York—we're not far. We can be back by evening."

"Good," Bayek says. "Thank you."

Berg turns to go, and then stops, his hand on the doorframe. "There's… one other reason I didn't want to tell you about the Sage," he admits reluctantly. "But you should know, since we're going to see him. The Templars found the boy—his name's Elijah—when his mother took him to an Abstergo clinic in the city. They have a policy of taking genetic information from anyone that comes through, and so of course they took his, and they tested it. And that told them that he was a Sage, but it also… it also told them something about his ancestors. And his paternal line matches Desmond's ancestry _exactly_."

In Bayek's defense, the concept of genetics is new to him, which is probably why it takes him a minute to get it. "Desmond is the Sage's father?" he asks.

"Yes," Berg says. "Almost definitely."

"Does he know?" Bayek asks.

"No," Berg says. "I don't think so."

"Hmm." The look Bayek gives him at that answer is unmistakably disapproving. "That does complicate things a little bit, doesn't it?"

-/-

They find Elijah easily enough. He still lives in a small apartment with his tired looking mother, at the same place he'd lived in 2015 when the Templars found out about him. When Berg and Bayek get there, the boy—wearing the face of every Sage Berg has ever seen in animus records, or in person with standish—is sitting on a low stone wall in front of the apartment building, hands folded in his lap.

He's wearing what looks like a school uniform, dull grey with a crest sewn on the chest, clearly secondhand. His pants are neatly creased, and the backpack resting on the sidewalk in front of him is clean as well.

Berg and Bayek come up the street on foot, after Berg parks a few blocks away. From the second they set foot on the street, the boy's eyes are fixed on the two of them. At first, Berg thinks it's coincidence, but as they walk, the boy's eyes move with him.

"It looks like he knows we're here," Bayek murmurs, unnecessarily.

"You think?" Berg asks. There's something about the boy's stare that makes him think he's been wrong about him. It's not the stare of a child.

"What do we do now?" Bayek asks. "Do we still go talk to him?"

"No," Berg says. "I talk to him, because unless he's a lot older than he looks—" With that stare, he might be. "He's not going to understand anything you have to say." He sighs. "Listen. I know what you want to ask him about. I can ask him for you, and tell you what he says."

Bayek clearly doesn't like that answer, but maybe if he wants to be able to deal with more people, he should spend more time learning English. He nods tightly, and even agrees to stay back when Berg goes to talk to Elijah. One huge man towering over the kid is going to be enough, no reason to terrify him any further.

As Berg gets closer, the boy stands, hoists his backpack onto his skinny, little boy shoulders, and stands waiting for Berg to come close. His face seems almost frozen in an unreadable expression, unnaturally still. Berg, who has never thought of himself as a person easily cowed, is suddenly lost for words. He stops, a few feet away from the boy, and finds himself waiting for Elijah to speak first.

"I'm ready," Elijah says, tone absolutely serious.

"Ready… for what?"

"I'm going to go with you," Elijah says.

"No you're not," Berg says. "I just have a few questions."

"I'm going with you," Elijah says again. "I'm supposed to. I know it."

"You know it?"

"I know things sometimes," Elijah says. "And it's time to go."

Berg is still trying to find the right thing to say when the door to the apartment building opens, and a woman steps out. "Elijah," she calls, beckoning him toward her. "Elijah, come inside. And what have I told you about strangers?"

"I'm leaving, Mom," Elijah says, without taking his gaze off Berg, not even blinking—Berg isn't actually sure if he's seen the boy blink at all since he and Bayek turned onto the street.

"Elijah, don't be—"

"It's time to go," Elijah says, turning around to look at his mother. "I know it."

Those three words seem to freeze her in her tracks, and Berg wonders what this poor woman must have been through in the past eight years. How often she must have heard those words, for them to have that kind of effect on her now. What have these two been through together?

The woman walks forward, and bends in front of her son. She hugs him, and Elijah stands there, blank and uncaring. And if he's been like this from the very beginning, then Berg can't entirely blame the mother when she straightens, and looks at him.

"So you'll be taking him away from me," she says.

"I—no ma'am," he says. "I wasn't exactly planning on it."

"It's very hard to plan for things when Elijah gets involved," she says, smile only a little bitter. "You'll learn that soon enough."

"Hold on," Berg says, voice rising a little. "I didn't come here to take him—I just had questions."

"You'll have more after you spend some time with him," she says, raising her eyes to heaven. "And I hope you have more luck getting your answers than I ever did."

"But—"

"It's time to go," Elijah announces, as he starts walking in the direction of where Bayek is waiting. Berg turns to watch him, speechless, but before he can figure out what is going _on_ here, Elijah's mother reaches out and grabs his wrist.

"He's never been much of a son to me," she says, in a voice like iron. "But even if he never cared a fig about me, I love him. Don't you let him get hurt."

"I never even said he was coming with us," Berg says, voice rising. "That's the _last_ thing I wanted when I came out here."

The woman releases him, and steps back. "You think you have a choice," she says. "You don't. Elijah's already made up his mind." And with that, she turns and disappears inside, closing the door behind her.

-/-

Several centuries in the past, and with no idea what Bayek and Berg are going through with Elijah, Layla is waiting in the keep at Masyaf to be allowed to see Altair. It had taken some doing—whereas last time, it was easy enough to just fall out of the sky in front of him, now she has to be _allowed_.

The first time she'd come, the man she spoke to had looked at her and her modern clothes in absolute confusion, before turning her flatly away. So Layla had been forced to go out into the village to steal some clothes that fit the time better, and in the process she'd been shocked to see the devastation there.

She'd had no idea this was supposed to happen. Honestly, she'd had no idea what happened in Altair's life at all, apart from the small sliver she'd seen for herself. Maybe if she'd been an Assassin for a longer time, she'd have known more—all the other people at their warehouse, even the Templars, seem to know a lot about him. Layla has no idea what she's walking into here, but something has obviously changed.

When she goes back a second time, and talks to a second man, she's allowed inside, where she still has to wait a while to see Altair—apparently, he's a very busy man these days. Layla, who has always hated waiting, spends most of her time trying to surreptitiously play games on her phone, until _finally_ Altair is available.

When she sees him again, her first thought is how tired he looks. "What happened to you?" she asks, standing up and quickly tucking the phone away out of sight—she has a feeling Altair saw it anyway, but at least he already knows what she is and where she's from.

"Al Mualim decided he wanted the apple for himself," Altair says tiredly. "He would have enslaved us all, just the same as Juno."

Well, Layla thinks. Probably not just the same—she doesn't think anyone else could ever be as truly terrifying as Juno. "I'm sorry," she says out loud, because whatever it is Al Mualim had planned with the apple, she knows it won't have been good. "Did you stop him?"

A look of genuine pain crosses Altair's normally unreadable face. "I killed him."

Layla doesn't have to know all the details of their relationship to understand that even with the apple, and Al Mualim's betrayal, Altair has lost a mentor and a friend. "I'm sorry," she says again.

"I did what I have to," Altair tells her. "And now I've been put in charge of… of all this."

"You'll be great at it," Layla says. "I know we didn't work together long, but you… I mean, if it hadn't been for you, Juno would have won right here and now. I was useless, and you walked right in and knew what to do."

"Layla…" Altair gestures for her to sit, but once she has, he stays standing himself. "Listen to me. I can see that you're doubting yourself, and there's no need for that."

"You've known me a day," Layla says. "Less. And all I did during that time was mess up. How can you possibly say that?"

"Because Desmond trusts you."

She's quiet for a moment, then asks, "Can you still… feel him, or whatever?"

"A little," Altair says. "Distantly. Sometimes I even think I hear him, but it's… difficult to tell whether that's just wishful thinking. I've been trying to see if I can get in contact with him using the apple, but—"

"You've been using the apple?" Layla demands, half rising from her seat.

"Not against anyone," Altair says. "Never. But I've been trying to learn from it. There's a lot it has to teach, and I knew you would be coming back for it soon enough. I didn't have much time."

More information… would be helpful, Layla has to admit. She opens her mouth, then hesitates and says nothing.

"There's so much to learn," Altair says. "And I've barely made a dent. If I had more time, I was thinking I could write it all down. In a codex, something like that. But that would take years, and—"

"Keep it," Layla blurts, standing fully.

"What?"

"We need more information," Layla says. "Desperately. If you're willing and able to do that, and still in contact with Desmond, then we can use that. Besides." She whistles for Senu, and the bird flaps in through the window, narrowly missing Altair, whose face twitches into a smile. "I think Juno won't be willing to come back here any time soon—you really scared her off, and then she'll be expecting us to want it in 2012. She won't look here."

"You're sure?"

She nods. "Write your codex, Altair."

And then she lets the eagle guide her back to the future. She thinks the others will understand the change of plans, and if they don't… well, she's just going to have to convince them.

 **-/-**

 **Special announcement, I guess? So I'm starting a spin off fic for Khemu and his adventures. Since it's focused more on day to day stuff than world saving stuff, chapters will be shorter and updated less often, but I figured I'd put it out there and see if anyone was interested. It's called Khemu of the Twenty First Century, because I am bad at titles.**


	19. Chapter 19

"I've been thinking," Bayek tells Layla.

It's early morning, just past dawn, and the two of them are up on the roof of the warehouse, watching the last streaks of red sunrise fade into blue sky. Layla is bundled up in sweatpants and a sweatshirt so large it completely covers her hands, hunched over the mug of coffee she'd insisted on making before coming up here.

"I've been sleeping," she says, pointedly.

Bayek grins and leans back. "It's almost six," he tells her.

"In the _morning_ ," she says. "Did you ask me up here this early just to bother me?"

"Partially," he says, just to hear her overdramatic groan. "But I'm never sure how much Elijah listens to, and I wanted to make sure he doesn't hear this."

"Kid creeps me out," Layla says, staring moodily at the coffee mug.

"He doesn't deserve that," Bayek says, although… well, she's right. Bayek has seen a lot of children, some here, more in Egypt, and _none_ of them are at all like Elijah. He's nothing like the other Sages Bayek has met, either—he hasn't had the training they have, he hasn't had their lore passed down to him from an older Sage. At some point between Bayek's time and this one, that chain of mentors and students had broken down. In a way, Bayek can feel sorry for Elijah.

In another way, he's terrified of what that boy can do, of what he 'just knows,' as he's so fond of saying. And in the past few days, no matter how often Bayek tries to keep Khemu away from him, the two of them just seem to stick together like glue. If anything ever happens with Elijah, Khemu's going to be the first one in danger.

"He shouldn't act the way he does, then," Layla says. "The way he just hides out and stares. It's weird."

There's a clatter from behind them, and when Bayek turns he sees Berg striding toward them. He half waves, and Berg acknowledges them with a grunt before sitting on Layla's other side. "You look like death warmed over," he tells her.

"Apparently I'm the only one that doesn't appreciate getting up before the sun," she says. "Bayek, what did you want us all here for?"

"Elijah," Bayek says. "We need to figure out what we're going to do about him. He says he needs to be here, and he's here, but we don't know why and he's not doing much here."

"Neither is Khemu," Berg says. "And we let _him_ stay."

"Khemu is my son," Bayek says.

"And Elijah is Desmond's," Berg shoots back.

There's a moment of silence, and then Bayek heaves a deep sigh. "Yes," he admits. "I've been trying not to think about that."

They still haven't told him about any of this. Bayek isn't sure where to start, because he's not sure if Desmond knows his son is a Sage, or what their history is, or why they weren't found together. Honestly, he's not sure if Desmond even knows he _has_ a son—for all the things Elijah 'just knows,' his father's name apparently isn't one of them. Bayek's mentioned Desmond once or twice, in passing, to no reaction from Elijah.

"What are we going to do with him?" Bayek asks, when the silence has settled heavily between them. "It's been three days. He won't tell us why he wants to be here, he won't do anything but sit there and watch us, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure that he's not spying for Juno."

"I don't know," Layla says. "I definitely agree that he's weird, but he's been coming out of his shell a little more. You saw him with Khemu yesterday, right?"

It feels like the bottom's dropped right out of Bayek's stomach. Elijah is different. He's not like other boys, and he's not like other Sages. He's dangerous, and Bayek doesn't want Khemu anywhere near him. "No," he says. "I had no idea—he was with _Khemu_?"

"Yea," Layla says. "They were running around upstairs most of the afternoon yesterday."

"I missed it," Bayek says, cursing himself for his inattention. He's already lost his son once, and he's _not_ going to do it again. "Tell me if you see them together again, Layla. And I'm going to talk to Khemu."

"On the other hand," Berg says. "None of us can get Elijah to open up to us. He might tell things to Khemu that he won't tell the rest of us, if they become friends."

"No," Bayek says, crossing his arms and shaking his head. " _Absolutely_ not."

"So you're going to tell your son he can't be friends with the only other child here?" Berg asks. "Forgive me if I'm overstepping." He does not sound at all apologetic. "But in my experience, that's going to drive any child to do exactly the opposite."

"Then Elijah needs to leave," Bayek insists.

"Without even talking to Desmond?" Layla asks. "He might not even know Elijah exists, and you want to kick him out before we even tell him?"

Bayek looks between Layla (whose expression is slightly sheepish) and Berg (looking almost _smug_ ). "You both want to keep Elijah here," he says.

"We still need information that he probably has," Berg says. "That hasn't changed just because you're worried about Khemu. And for the record, Elijah hasn't hurt Khemu. He hasn't hurt anyone."

"He's just creepy," Layla volunteers.

"Let's talk to Desmond," Berg says. "If nothing else, we need him caught up on this before we make any major decisions. Layla, can you send him another email?"

"Yep," Layla says. "No problem, I'll do it as soon as I get inside." She glances at Bayek. "And in the meantime, you should still talk to Khemu. Maybe you don't have to scare him away from Elijah, but you can at least warn him to be careful."

"Sure," Bayek says, tight worry coiling in his chest. And he'd thought that Layla, of all people, would understand. She knows everything he's been through. "I only hope it's enough."

-/-

As his friends sit on the roof of their warehouse and argue about the fate of his son, Desmond is climbing into the animus for another bright and early start to the day. He's rushing through Ezio's memories much more quickly than he remembers managing it last time, but he's finally close to the first really important part—the memory where Ezio picks up the apple for the first time.

Ezio still has no idea what it is or what it can do—to him, it's just a trinket the Templars are after, and Desmond knows that he's going to lose it to the Templars again soon enough. _His_ job is just to keep a close watch, to make sure that when Ezio loses the apple it's going to be to the Templars, not to Juno.

This would be a prime opportunity for Juno to strike—Ezio is young and reckless and she's ruthless enough to take advantage of that. Desmond spends his first hour in the animus so on edge he can feel himself tension in his muscles in the real world. And then, as he eases into the second hour, there she is.

She's sitting on a bench in the midst of an outdoor market, her eyes fixed on Ezio as he moves across the square—like she just knows he's there, no matter how much he moves, or how often he passes out of sight. At first, Ezio doesn't seem to even notice her—but eventually her constant staring manages to catch his attention, and that makes him hesitate. Desmond can feel it tugging at his mind, and he tries with all his might to pull his ancestor toward caution. He wouldn't be surprised if Ezio decided to march right over to Juno and confront her for staring at him, and there's no way that could possibly end well.

Ezio scales the side of a building and watches her for a while. She watches him back, and Desmond can just about make out the sight of a smile on her face.

His hand starts to itch uncomfortably.

Ezio waits as long as he seems physically capable of sitting still, then mutters, _"Right_ ," and executes a perfect leap of faith into a haystack several floors below. When he hops back out, Juno has moved closer, and Ezio gives her his most charming smile. "Well," he says. "I must say this isn't the first time I've caught the eye of a beautiful woman, but you seem a little more interested than most."

The look of disbelief on Juno's face perfectly matches the way Desmond feels in that moment.

"Excuse me?" Juno asks, tone perfectly flat.

"Perhaps we could talk somewhere more private," Ezio says, offering Juno his hand.

In that single moment, Desmond's worst fears are concerned. Ezio is actually trying to flirt with Juno.

His only consolation in that moment is that she doesn't seem to have any more idea how to handle it than he does, and for a second she just stands there, staring at Ezio as he continues to smile at her.

"Maybe somewhere private would be best," she agrees, and—with an expression of visible distaste that surprises no one but Ezio—lets him take her hand. He doesn't seem as certain about her after seeing that look, but if there's one thing Ezio does not lack, it's self-confidence. Desmond doesn't even have the same connection to Ezio that he'd developed with Altair, so he can't even warn Ezio away as Juno leads him off.

As soon as they're out of sight of everyone else, Juno reaches out and puts her hand on Ezio's head. Desmond's breath catches in horror—he's heard from Layla what Juno can do to people by touching him, and he doesn't want to see it happen to Ezio now.

"Sit down," Juno tells him, and Desmond feels, as if at a distance, the way Ezio's mind changes. "And for the sake of my own sanity, be _quiet._ "

The feeling of dread horror creeping through Ezio's mind is like nothing Desmond has ever experienced in his life. Even though they're not his feelings, even though he's only getting a little bit of what Ezio's getting, it's enough to give Desmond an intense feeling of guilt. He should have been able to find a way to protect Ezio, he should have been able to do _something_. Ezio does as he's told, he sits down and he's quiet. It's unnatural.

Desmond's hand burns.

It burns, and it doesn't stop. It burns the way it had with Altair, and Desmond grits his teeth against the pain. Ezio, still silent, rubs at his wrist with his other hand, and glares at Juno as if it's her fault.

"Here," Juno says, and she pulls a picture out from somewhere Desmond can't quite see. An actual photograph, almost comically out of place here in Ezio's Italy. Two people, bound and gagged—Desmond's dad, and a little girl he doesn't recognize. Next to them is a newspaper that says December 1, 2017. "Two captives, William Miles and Elina Berg. You have two time travelers. So go back to them, and tell them to go _there_. They rescue the captives, and they stay out of my way while I take the apple."

Desmond goes cold inside. No. _No_. How are they supposed to choose? Why would Layla and Bayek abandon the apple to rescue his dad and Berg's daughter? Juno smiles grimly at him, and then turns and walks away.

It takes a long time after that for Desmond to process everything he's just seen. It takes even longer for his hand and Ezio's to stop burning, and when the pain fades, he's not entirely surprised to look down and see a symbol etched into Ezio's wrist. It looks a little like the flying machine Da Vinci had made.

The fire in his hand has burned away whatever hold Juno had on Ezio, which is one good thing, at least. It solves Ezio's problem, but it doesn't solve _Desmond's_. There's no way to save Juno's captives _and_ keep her from the apple, there's just no way—

"She was talking to you," Ezio says quietly. "You, in my head."

 _"I… yes."_

"I don't know you," Ezio says quietly, standing up. His gaze is fixed on the end of the road where Juno had disappeared. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know what she's talking about, I don't know who you are, I don't know anything about time travel. But you tell your friends to go rescue those people."

Desmond takes a breath. This is kind of weird—with Altair, he'd had to answer a hundred questions and explain everything. Ezio is just accepting it all at face _"You don't understand. If she gets the apple—"_

"She won't," Ezio says. "We're going to stop her. So go tell your friends what she said. We'll stop her here."

-/-

When Desmond logs out of the animus, Shaun and Rebecca are busy grumbling that they hadn't gotten _any_ usable footage out of that, and Rebecca is just about ready to jump on her baby to see what's wrong with it. Desmond almost feels bad for her—he'd made sure none of the footage would be clear enough for them to hear what Juno said, because there's no way he could explain, but he does feel bad, lying to his friends.

Lucy's watching him from the other side of the room as he heads for the computer, to send off an email to Layla, but she's far enough away that Desmond decides to risk it.

He logs in, opens his email, all ready to tell Layla about Juno's plan.

And then he sees the fresh email from Layla, telling him about his son the Sage. Desmond takes a deep, ragged breath—and then he gives in. It's too much, all at once. His shoulders shake as he starts to cry.

 **-/-**

 **I kind of hate this chapter. xD There's too much crammed into it, sorry. I tried to rewrite it but nothing was working, so... here you go.**


	20. Chapter 20

Lucy doesn't think she _likes_ Desmond, very much.

Or maybe that's not true—maybe she's just wary of him, because he's so different from what she'd been told to expect. Desmond Miles is _not_ a runaway ex-Assassin, he's not a down on his luck bartender from a crap part of New York City.

Desmond Miles, she firmly believes, is dangerous.

His ancestors are teaching him to fight and kill through the bleeding effect, but Lucy has the impression that Desmond already knows a lot of it—he's just picking it up too fast for all this to be truly new to him. And then there are his secrets, whatever they are. Desmond just doesn't act like a man with nothing to hide, and Lucy should know. She's spent long enough as a spy herself to recognize when someone else is sending secrets somewhere they shouldn't.

The only problem is, Lucy has no idea who Desmond might be reporting to. She knows it's not the Templar, because it'd be pretty stupid for them to send both her _and_ Desmond to spy on each other. The Templars are more organized than that, especially on something so important. But who else does that leave? Someone from the outside, someone not involved in the conflict between the Templars and Assassins? _Who_?

She keeps a close watch on him, searching for so much as the slightest clue. Occasionally, she finds them. When she first takes him to the Assassin's hideout, he addresses Rebecca by name, before he's even introduced to her. Well—technically, he calls her _Becca_ , familiar and too friendly. Then there's the computer. Desmond is _always_ on it, typing away, not even trying to be subtle about sending out emails. They'd only set up an account for him so they could leave messages about things that happen while he's in the animus, and he shouldn't even have anyone's emails other than the three of them, but he's over there so often he _must_ be writing to someone else.

But today, when Lucy sits at her desk, watching Desmond from across the room, she sees something she hadn't expected. Desmond comes out of the animus—another wasted session, where they hadn't been able to see any of Ezio's memories—visibly upset. He crosses to the computer he uses to check his email, taps out his password, and for a second it looks like he's going to start typing something out.

And then… he pauses. Lucy catches herself leaning forward slightly, across her desk, caught up in the sight of Desmond sitting there, reading his emails. To anyone else, it might have seemed a completely normal activity. To Lucy, who catches the almost frantic way his eyes flick from side to side as he reads, the tension in his posture, and then—shockingly—the steady, silent tears, this is a sign. Whatever news Desmond has just gotten, it's obviously bad for his secret mission. This is her opportunity to pounce, preferably before Shaun or Rebecca notice something's wrong.

"Desmond," she says, slipping easily into a cheerful persona. "I think we should go down to the obstacle course I set up on the ground floor. It'll give me a chance to see how much of Ezio's skills you're picking up."

"I really don't feel like it right now," Desmond says, and although he does a good job of keeping the tears out of his voice, he's still too quiet, and visibly shaken.

"Oh go on, Desmond," Shaun calls from his work station. "All you do is lie around on the animus all day, you could do with getting up once in a while."

Looking at him now, Lucy's pretty sure that the only reason Desmond doesn't argue is that he doesn't know what to say. He has the look of a man struggling just to remember how to breathe. "Great," she says. "So it's decided, right?" She stands and walks over to Desmond. "Come on. Let's get downstairs."

Desmond follows numbly behind Lucy, and by the time they get downstairs, she actually feels a little bad for him. When she stops at the bottom of the stairs, and turns around to face Desmond, she feels like she's seeing the _real_ Desmond, possibly for the first time. He's not hiding anything right now, that's just exactly how he feels, plastered all across his face.

"Lucy," he says. "I really can't do this right now."

She debates the best way to handle this. On the one hand, he's hiding something, and she's hiding something, and if she's just a _little_ bit honest with him, he might be a lot more honest with her. Especially with how raw he looks right now. On the other hand, Lucy's gotten a lot of information out of men in the past by being kind and listening well when they need it most.

She decides to go with honesty. Even with Desmond off balance like he is now, she doesn't really think he's going to be flattered into telling her anything important. "That's fine," she says, crossing her arms. "Because I didn't call you down here to see what you're learning. I think it's time we had a conversation."

"About _what_?" Desmond asks, dropping down to sit on a low crate. Lucy picks one a few feet away and sits there with her legs crossed, studying him.

"We've never been honest with each other," Lucy says. "And I think it's time we were."

Desmond looks at her, then seems to pull himself up from deep inside his mind. He straightens, and the look he gives her tells Lucy that he knows this is going to be a battle. Whatever he's going through, he pushes it aside and focuses on her.

"Really," he says. "We're going to be honest?"

"Yes. I—"

"Okay," Desmond says. "You start. Tell me what it's like, being a Templar."

She _gapes_ at him. How long has he known? How did he found out, and why hasn't he said anything? With no other option, Lucy turns to flat denial. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she says.

Desmond snorts. "So much for honesty."

"I'm being honest with you," Lucy snaps. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The look he gives her then makes Lucy pause. It's flatly unimpressed, like he's seeing right through her, like he already knows. Lucy slumps, giving in. Maybe this is going to take a little bit more honesty on her part than she'd been ready to give him.

"Alright," she says quietly. "Hypothetically, maybe it's possible that… what you just said is true."

"I know."

"How?"

He opens his mouth, then closes it again, and Lucy feels a little surge of triumph. Yes, he knows what she is, but apparently he can't tell her _how_ he knows, without giving up some of his own secrets. That's good, because it keeps her safe for at least a little while.

"Why were you crying upstairs?" Lucy asks, pressing her small advantage.

"I wasn't."

"Why were you upset?"

He doesn't meet her eyes. "It was just the bleeding effect."

"You bounced back pretty quickly," Lucy says. "If that really was the bleeding effect." True, he does still look pretty upset, but not in the way she thinks he would if he was bleeding. He's aware, he's present in the current moment, he knows who and where he is. If he'd been bleeding in front of the computer, he'd still show some signs of it now.

She feels a little thrill of seeing him close to breaking. He'd been hit by something upstairs, and it had really upset him. If he's anything like most people, he'll by desperate to talk about it to _someone_ , and Lucy's his only option right now.

"Why were you so upset?" she asks again.

There's a tense moment where Desmond seems to teeter on the edge of telling her something, and then just on the edge of pulling back—and then finally he says, "I got some bad news."

"What kind—"

"Or maybe it's good news. I don't know." He buries his head in his hands and mumbles something that Lucy can't hear.

"That's pretty unspecific, Desmond," Lucy says.

Desmond looks up at her, eyes red from where he's been rubbing them. "Well I don't exactly trust you."

She gives him a sarcastic smirk. "What," she says. "Just because I'm a Templar?"

His expression turns surprisingly serious. "I don't think all Templars are bad. It's not so bad working with some of them. But you're lying to Shaun and Rebecca, you're pretending to be something you're not, and you're using us." He stands up, clearly done with her, clearly ready to walk off.

"So where do we go from here?" Lucy asks.

He frowns. "I need to keep going with Ezio's memories," he says. "And you want to see them too, don't you?"

"Yes," she agrees.

"So let's… just keep going," Desmond sighs. "I won't tell if you don't."

Lucy can't help herself. "Lying to Shaun and Rebecca?" she asks. "I thought you hated that."

Desmond gives her a look of absolute disgust, and then walks away. Lucy stays where she is, breathing deeply, considering what he'd just said—and one part in particular.

 _I don't think all Templars are bad. It's not so bad working with some of them._

That doesn't sound like a hypothetical, it sounds like he's had _actual_ experience, working with _actual_ Templars. That's a huge hint, and Lucy doesn't think Desmond had meant to reveal that much to her. She sits where she is for a while, smiling softly to herself. Then she pulls out her phone, the one the Assassins don't know about, the one Vidic had encrypted himself.

 _I think Desmond's working with Templars_ , she texts him. _Did you ever manage to decrypt any of the emails he sent while he was in your animus?_

There's a long pause, and Lucy rolls her eyes as she pictures Vidic painstakingly tapping out his answer. For a man that was smart enough to invent the animus, he has a weird amount of trouble with texting. Finally, his answer comes through.

 _Not yet. Close. He got sloppy his last day, didn't erase everything. Should have that message soon. Then we'll know._

Lucy nods to herself as she slips her phone away. Between Vidic pouring over everything Desmond had done in Abstergo's computers, and Lucy working on him here, soon enough they'll know all of Desmond's secrets.

-/-

Back upstairs, Desmond finds Rebecca waiting with a cup of what he thinks at first is coffee, but turns out to be hot chocolate.

"You looked pretty upset when you rushed out of here," she says. "I keep a stash of this stuff lying around for when I really need cheering up."

Desmond murmurs a thank you, then when she starts to walk away, he says, "Rebecca?"

"Yea, Desmond?"

He cups his hand around the mug, and says, "I'm keeping a secret from you."

"What?"

"I…" He shouldn't be saying any of this, but he's feeling fragile and _scared_ after everything that's happened. His dad's a prisoner. He has a son. And Lucy is far too close to finding out everything. He doesn't want to make an enemy out of Rebecca, or Shaun for that matter. "It's just something I can't talk about yet. But when the time comes, I'll tell you everything. I promise."

She studies him for a second, then nods, giving him one of her trademark Rebecca-Crane-grins. "I believe you."

With one last nod she turns back to her work, leaving Desmond to walk slowly over to the computer and sit down. He opens up his email and reads it over and over again, trying to process Layla's news.

 _From: Temp Account_

 _To: Desmond Miles_

 _Date: September 11, 2012, 7:22 AM_

 _Subject: Big News_

 _Desmond, I have something to tell you, and there's no easy way to say it, especially through email. So I'm sorry, okay? I wish things could have been different, or I could have told you in person, or something._

 _Bayek wanted to find a Sage, to see if we could get more information about Juno or time travel or anything that would help, and Berg remembered hearing about two. The first one… doesn't really matter right now, I guess he's pretty much an asshole. But the other one is this little boy, and he's your son._

 _See? There's no good way to say that. Berg saw the genetics report once, and I honestly don't think he'd lie about something like that. So they went, Berg and Bayek, and as far as I know they were just going to ask him some question, but he insisted on coming back with them._

 _He's not like any kid I've ever seen. He doesn't really think like a kid or act like a kid, and he just sits around and watches us all the time like he's storing everything away to use against us later. I don't know. I guess that doesn't sound fair to him, but I don't know how to explain what he's like. Sometimes I wonder if he's even human, inside. He just gives me the creeps, and I'm not the only one._

 _I just want you to be prepared, because he's made it pretty clear that he's not going anywhere._

 _Layla_

He reads it, trying not to feel too much. This isn't the time. He needs to be able to think, but that's hard when he's just been told that he has a son, and that his son is… is… he doesn't even know what to think. Layla's description is frustrating in that he _trusts_ her not to just make stuff up about a kid, but he's just having a hard time picturing a boy like the one she's talking about.

 _Even if you trust her, you do not forfeit the right to decide what you think of him for yourself._

 _Altair?_

He feels something like a nod, and relaxes very slightly.

 _Maybe there is something wrong for him. Wait to see for yourself._

The feeling of another presence in his head ebbs and mostly fades away, and Desmond turns back to the computer with fresh determination.

 _From: Desmond Miles_

 _To: Temp Account_

 _Date: September 11, 2012, 9:32 AM_

 _Subject: Re: Big News_

 _I found Juno again. She came looking for Ezio, and showed me a picture of some captives she's holding in 2017. My dad and Berg's daughter. December 1, in the Temple in New York. You and Berg have to go, she specifically said she wouldn't let them out unless both of you went. I know you're not Juno's biggest fan, but don't worry, she won't be there. She'll be in Ezio's time, taking the apple of Eden. I've been kind of talking to Ezio, sort of, the way I was sort of talking to Altair. We're going to do what we can to stop Juno in his time, and you guys need to focus on rescuing dad and Berg's daughter. Okay? I know the apple is important, but we have this. I promise._

 _Also, I think Lucy might be getting a little suspicious. She admitted she's a Templar, and she's definitely convinced I'm hiding something, too. I couldn't do anything to change her mind. Obviously it's not the worst thing going on right now, but we might have to worry about it later._

 _Desmond_

He sends the email, then stares at the blank screen for a long time. He'd intentionally left out anything about his son, because he's trying to follow Altair's advice and wait until he can meet the kid for himself, but it's hard.

Very slowly, he types out a second email.

 _From: Desmond Miles_

 _To: Temp Account_

 _Date: September 11, 2012, 9:45 Am_

 _Subject: Re: Big News_

 _What's my son's name?_

"Desmond," Rebecca calls. "You ready to get back in the animus?"

"Yea," Desmond shouts back, although he doesn't feel ready at all. As he heads for the animus, he tries to reach out for Altair.

 _I hope you've been studying the apple,_ he tells his ancestor. _Because I have no idea what Ezio and I are about to walk into._

 _Don't worry about that,_ Altair says, with a cool satisfaction. _I think I've picked up a few tricks._

 **-/-**

 **I can't believe this is up to chapter 20 already, whoops. xD Lots of thanks to everyone that's reviewed and encouraged me to keep writing.**


	21. Chapter 21

When Layla has read through the whole of Desmond's email, twice, she dashes off to find Bayek. She explains as quickly as she can, rushing the words out, and he nods once. "You're sure Desmond has Juno covered with his ancestor?" he asks.

"That's what he said in the email," Layla tells him.

"Then there's no reason we shouldn't do what he says and go rescue her captives in the future." He sighed and leaned back slightly, rubbing at his face. "We should tell Berg before we leave, though. We need someone to watch over things here until we get back, and it _is_ his daughter."

"He'll be devastated," Layla says.

"He still deserves to know."

"Alright," Layla says. "Do you want to tell him, or should I?"

"I will," Berg says. "I understand what it's like to have a child in danger, and I might be able to tell him in a way that's less…" He hesitated.

"Less likely to make him insist on coming with us and rescuing her himself?" Layla asks.

"Exactly," Bayek says, with a hint of a grin. "I'll do that now. Get Senu ready and we'll leave as soon as I get back."

She murmurs an assent, and heads outside to call Senu back from where she's been hunting.

It takes a little bit of effort to coax the bird inside—Senu is in an unusually playful mood, and seems to be enjoying the breeze. It's an unusually warm day for September, and the sun makes the breeze pleasant instead of chilly. Layla lets Senu take her time coming down, thinking that Bayek will probably take some time to explain everything to Berg, and when the eagle is ready she brings her back into the warehouse.

Berg and Bayek are both waiting for her upstairs, Berg looking absolutely livid, and Bayek looks exasperated bordering on annoyed. "Berg has made a decision," Bayek says. "I don't think it's the right decision, but we've agreed to leave it up to you to decide."

"Me?" Layla asks. "Why?"

"Because it's only fair," Berg says. "The two of us almost came to blows over it, and asking a mutually trusted third person to decide seems like a better idea than fighting each other."

"Well alright," Layla says. She's oddly flattered that they trust her that much. "What am I supposed to be deciding?"

"When you and Bayek have rescued my daughter, I want you to bring her back here."

"Oh my God," Layla says, staring at him. " _Why_?"

Bayek nods, and spreads his arms in a 'see what I mean?' kind of gesture. "Its not exactly unsafe here," he says. "But there's still some risk to being surrounded by so many Assassins and Templars—if I had somewhere else that I could bring Khemu, and know that he would be safe and cared for, I would do it. Your daughter doesn't need to be dragged five years into the past, away from her mother."

"Juno's just kidnapped her," Berg says flatly. I think it's pretty difficult to argue that she's safe where she is. And if Juno has her, we don't even know where Helmi is."

Layla assumes that must be Elina's mother. And he does have a point—things aren't exactly safe there for her. She chews it over, then nods. "Alright," she says. "I think you have a point."

"You'll bring her back?" Berg asks.

"I think… it's probably safer," Layla admits.

"Do you promise?" Berg presses.

"I promise," Layla says. She glances at Bayek. "Are you okay with that?"

"I don't… agree that it's the safest place," Bayek says. "But we agreed it would be up to you, Layla. So we'll bring her here. As long as she agrees, alright Berg?"

"Just bring her." Berg says. " _Bring_ her."

-/-

When they arrive in 2017, the Temple is pretty much how Layla remembers it from her visit there in 2012. Almost five years ago to the day, although to her it's been less than a month.

She suddenly feels very tired. When all this is over, they're going to have to go on a very long vacation somewhere.

Next to her, Bayek whispers something to Senu, and lifts his arm as Senu takes off. Layla waits quietly, watching Bayek's expression seem to lose focus as his vision switches to whatever Senu is seeing. When he finally blinks and refocuses, he catches Layla's eye and puts a finger to his lips. She nods and follows him as he skirts around the edge of the Temple to get to a small patch of bushes a short distance away. "Half a dozen guards," he whispers to her. The closest two are right over there, by where we were standing." He points, and Layla nods when she manages to catch a glimpse.

"And are William and Elina actually inside?" she asks, careful to keep her voice low.

"Inside and alive," he says. "I can't tell they're hurt or restrained, but they're definitely in there."

"Well," Layla says. "That's something. What do we do now?"

Bayek thinks about it. "Well," he says at last. "We _are_ expected."

"So you're saying—what, that we just walk up to them and say hey, we're here for your prisoners?" She nods back to the two guards that are visible from their hiding place. "We could take them out, and work our way through the rest of the cave from there."

"That's a possibility," Bayek says slowly. "But I'm concerned that if these are Juno's people, they're only doing this because she's forcing them to do it. I don't want to kill people that can't control themselves."

"We could try taking them out without killing them," Layla points out. "Just handing ourselves over doesn't seem like the greatest idea. Or—you don't think we could sneak in?"

"There's only one way into the Temple," Bayek says. "And they know that—they're keeping a good watch. Besides, even if we could get in ourselves, and even if William is in good enough shape after being captured to sneak back out with us afterward, I doubt Berg's daughter will be up to it."

Layla thinks about that, about the fact that they have captives (one of them a child) to worry about, and then, reluctantly, realizes that Bayke's probably right about this. If they take her approach, and Juno's people spot them, it could turn into a full out fight—and she's not sure she trusts them not to kill their captives or use them as a bargaining chip. At least this way does get them closer to the Temple.

"Alright," she says. "We do it your way. But if they look like they're going to attack us… we are going to fight back, right?"

"Of course," Bayek agrees.

"Great," Layla mutters. "Perfect, just fantastic. On three?"

He nods, and she counts to three—mostly to work up her own courage—and the two of them stand and walk directly to the Temple entrance. There are two of Juno's people here, both of them with the same blank look Layla had seen (and felt on herself) in Masyaf when Juno started taking control of people.

She and Bayek stop in front of the two guards, and Layla lets herself take a closer look. Neither of them is visibly armed, but Layla doesn't think it takes a gun to be deadly when you're not in control of yourself—these people don't need weapons, they _are_ weapons, and Juno can wield them however she wants. Layla wonders how many other time periods Juno has managed to sneak into without them knowing about it, and how many mind wiped servants she has in different parts of history, messing up the timeline, insinuating themselves into all kinds of places they shouldn't be.

Bayek clears his throat and looks at Layla. She remembers with a start that this isn't their hideout, and the people here aren't going to have translators for his Egyptian. So she's going to have to do the talking. "We're here for your prisoners," she announces.

"These the two we've been waiting for?" the one whispers to the other.

"Think so," says the second. "Looks like them."

They both face Layla for a second, expressions blank-Layla can't help but shiver slightly.

The second one turns back to his friend, keeping one unblinking eye on Layla and Bayek as he says, "Well you saw the picture She left. Are these the people we're waiting for?"

"I think so."

"Then we have to take them inside," the second one says. "She said we had to."

"Well we can't argue with Her, can we?"

The two guards turn move to stand on either side of Layla and Bayek, and escort them down, through the hidden cave entrance, into the Temple. There are a few other guards down here—Layla counts four of them—and they all stop what they're doing to watch Layla and Bayek as they're walked down and inside.

"There," one of the guards escorting them says, nodding sharply toward a back corner. Layla recognizes William at once, although he looks dirtier and a bit bloodier than he had the last time she'd seen him. He's clearly exhausted, but still sitting stiffly upright, positioned in such a way that Layla has to look twice before she can spot Elina wedged into a corner behind him.

"Layla," Bayek says abruptly, as they're allowed to step closer. "I just thought of something."

His tone, and the urgency in it, almost makes Layla stop dead in her tracks. She's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, and maybe Bayek's spotted whatever that other shoe is going to be. "What?"

"There's nothing to stop Juno from using the apple on William or Elina."

"No," Layla protests, even as a cold kind of chill runs through her. That's not fair at all. "Do you think she would?"

"Why not?" Bayek says. "It would give her a huge advantage to have some of her people embedded with us."

"How do we check?" Layla asks.

He doesn't answer, not really, he just says, "Stay on your guard," and leaves it at that.

"Go on," one of their guards says. "She said you were supposed to come here for the prisoners. So go get them already."

Layla takes a deep breath and steps forward—Bayek stays where he is—until William looks up at her with a start.

He looks reassuringly un-mind controlled. Unlike the guards she's seen here so far, or any of the other mind controlled people she's seen in other places, William's eyes are attentive and focus on her easily. "Layla," he says, with a hint of his old self assuredness. "You weren't exactly the person I was expecting to see here."

"Well, here I am," she says. "And I brought Bayek."

"I see," William says. "How's Desmond?"

"He's doing fine," she says. She can hardly believe they're here, having this conversation in the Grand Temple where his son had almost died, while Juno's mind controlled servants stand guard around them. "How are you and…?" she nods at the little girl behind him.

"More than ready to leave," he says.

"Then let's go," she says, glancing back behind her. Is it her imagination, or are the six guards creeping closer? She shifts uneasily, watching as William gently shakes Elina awake. She leans against his side once she's on her feet, looking at Bayek and Layla through wide, scared eyes.

"They're friends of your father," William tells her quietly. "Not like the other people here, okay? And we're going to get out of here."

Layla hears footsteps, and when she turns the guards are definitely closer. She catches Bayek's eye and he nods before turning around, positioning himself so they're back to back. No surprises.

"Are they going to let us go?" Elina asks. Layla has to strain to hear her, she's so quiet.

"Probably not," William says. "But even if they try to stop us, we're leaving now." He puts his hands on her shoulders and maneuvers her into the space between the three adults. Bayek nods approvingly, and then beckons them forward.

As soon as they take one step toward the entrance, the guards move.

"You were supposed to come for the prisoners," one of them announces. He looks genuinely sorry for the words coming out of his mouth, not that it does them any good. "But she also said that none of you was actually supposed to leave."

Layla tenses, readying herself for a fight.

"Don't let them get to Elina," Bayek says, and then Juno's people are on top of them, fighting like wild things, fierce and angry, almost suicidal in the risks they take. They push and shove at her until she's cut off from the group, fighting two at once, and for a minute she thinks this is going to be it—then William snatches a knife from Bayek and throws it at one of the men Layla's fighting. He goes down dead, and Layla takes care of the other one quickly. There's only two more left on their feet by that point, both fighting William, so she runs over to help him while Bayek picks Elina up and rushes her to safety.

The last two guards fall, and Layla stands in a puddle of blood, hands on her knees, panting and trying not to look too closely. Her breath comes back slowly, and when she can eventually stand up, she sees William standing there, watching her, slowly wiping the blood off a knife.

Layla swallows and straightens up. "Bayek thinks you and Elina might be mind controlled," she says. "Are you?"

William scowls, so deeply offended that Layla has to laugh. "No," he says. "Now let's get out of this damn cave."

He stows the knife away with a quick flourish that Layla can't quite track, and leads the way out of the cave, into the sunlight where Bayek and Elina are waiting for them.

 **-/-**

 **Ugh I'm so bad at fight scenes. xD Sorry if that was a let down!**

 **Next chapter: Desmond and Ezio vs Juno. :)**


	22. Chapter 22

It's a little like going into battle.

As Desmond heads back for the animus, knowing the fight he and Ezio are going to have on their hands when he gets there, he realizes he's shaking. It's true that he's not going to be in any danger in the past, or not any physical danger at least, but Ezio will be. If Juno kills him in the past, Desmond will never even be born. The stakes are very real.

And not just for him, he realizes abruptly. If he's never born, then his son will never be born either, and that can't happen. Desmond's never even had a chance to meet him, he doesn't even know his _name_ , and there's no way Desmond's going to let them both get written out of history before they have a chance to meet.

He insists on wearing his hidden blades when he goes into the animus. He's not expecting any trouble, but with the way he's left things with Lucy, he's not sure if he's changed things enough for her to try and do anything to him while his mind is with Ezio. And besides, the weight of the bracers on his arms makes him feel marginally better as he climbs into the animus and squeezes his eyes shut.

"You okay, Desmond?" Rebecca asks. He's not actually in the past yet, still waiting for her to start the program and send him in, but Desmond refuses to open his eyes and look at her. He's preparing himself, and he doesn't want to have to start over.

"I'm fine," he says. "Seriously."

"You're just so quiet—"

"He says he's fine, Becca," Shaun says. "Come on, already—"

"Well all right. But Desmond, if this is too much for you, I'm pulling you out."

"Don't," Desmond says. "I need to se this through." Please. This is going to be hard enough without getting pulled out halfway through, and he won't abandon Ezio.

"Never heard anyone begging to get put in the animus before," Shaun mutters, and Desmond gives a soft sigh as Rebecca finally puts him in. If he only knew the full story…

In the brief pause between when the real world breaks apart and Ezio's Italy loads around him, Desmond stands in the animus loading screen and looks down at his wrist with his still glowing scars. _Ezio?_ he tries, making sure not to speak out loud in case he accidentally speaks in the modern world. _Altair?_

 _Here_.

It's Altair's voice, clearer than the last few times Desmond has been able to hear him. He grins. _So are you fighting with us?_ he asks.

 _As long as I can stay with you,_ Altair says grimly, and Desmond has a sudden flash of vision, so clear he believes it without question, of Altair sitting in his quiet room in Masyaf, apple cupped in his hand. _I've been practicing, but it's difficult._

 _You told me before that you picked up a few tricks from the apple,_ Desmond says. _Anything that's going to help us here_? Around him, the world and Ezio start to load up, and Desmond half feels a second presence join Altair's.

 _I know enough to keep her from trying to put you under her control._

 _Okay,_ Desmond says. _Great, that's a start._ He looks around at where they are, and recognizes what memory this is. Ezio's about to trick the Templars into letting him take the apple. If Juno's going to act, it's going to be now, or at least very soon.

 _So this thing_ , Ezio says, breaking right into their conversation as if they're all old friends. Even in the circumstances, Desmond can feel a little grin on his face in the real world. _It's the same as the thing she already has? Why does she want two?_

 _Because two would make her more powerful,_ Altair answers at once. He sounds sure of himself. _For someone like that, what other reason does she need?_

Ezio manages to get hold of the Apple, and at first things go pretty much the way they had the first time Desmond had lived this memory. Ezio disguises himself as a Templar soldier, goes to where the apple is waiting, and carries it through the city. Rodrigo Borgia shows up, and the two of them threaten each other for a while, and then Ezio escapes with the apple. He vanishes into the city and quickly loses the Templars as he weaves his way through the streets and over the rooftops. He keeps an eye out as he runs, and Desmond is straining too, looking for Juno.

And then they see her, at last.

 _What do we do?_ Ezio asks. His hand darts for a moment to the pouch at his belt where the apple sits, just to make sure it's still there and still safe. _Hide? Or fight?_

Desmond can see which option Ezio prefers—he's the kind of person that wants to run right into danger, to charge up and confront it before it has the chance to sneak up and hurt him. Maybe it's the loss of his father and brothers because of a man that Ezio thought he could trust—for an Assassin that _works in the dark to serve the light_ , he has a certain tendency toward visibility.

 _Hiding won't work,_ Altair says.

 _Good._

 _She'll find you eventually, and in the meantime she'll hurt other people. So a head on confrontation is the best option._

 _With Juno?_ Desmond interjects. _Seriously? She'll win in a straight out fight._

 _Desmond._ Altair's voice in his head is almost fond. _Did I imply that we are going to fight fair?_

-/-

Back on the outside, Lucy is supposed to be on break. It's Shaun's turn to watch Desmond, and while he does that, Rebecca sleeps and Lucy checks her computer for emails from Vidic. It's not exactly a break, just trading in one identity for another—Assassin to Templar in the blink of an eye—but none of the others knows that.

There's one new message waiting for her, terser than usual, and for once it's not more instructions.

 _Still can't get into Miles's email here, he was too thorough at deleting them. Figured out how to intercept new messages though, wrote up a program that does it automatically. Too big and dangerous to send it through email, so someone will be bringing a CD by in person. Time and location attached. Be there._

It's not a lot, but if this thing works the way Vidic thinks it will, and if Lucy can keep it hidden from Desmond she's going to learn a lot about him. He won't be able to stop her, he'll never even know. She sits at her computer, staring into the middle distance and tapping her chin with her finger.

She doesn't know why she feels slightly uncomfortable with the idea.

-/-

They find Juno as evening presses in around them, although really they never lost her. They've been following her most of the day, watching, learning. To Ezio, who never tracks a target this long before striking, it's an exercise in patience. For Desmond, who has sort of started to believe Juno knows everything and is always going to be two steps ahead of them, just being able to stay hidden is like a shot of adrenaline. For Altair, it's just business. He's as calm and unflappable as ever, as if Juno is any other target.

 _Are we going to kill her?_ Ezio asks.

 _No._

Altair's answer comes so quickly that the other two are both surprised. _Why… why not?_ Desmond asks. _If we have the chance, we should take it._

 _That's just it,_ Altair says. _We won't have the chance—not yet. Remember she's a time traveler, she's been working with the apples a lot longer than any of us has, and there is nothing so immoral she won't stoop to trying it. We're not going to beat her in a straight out fight. Not yet._

Desmond likes that _yet_ , he likes the idea that they won't always be running away. Someday they'll be fighting back, even if it's not today.

 _So what are we doing?_ Ezio grumbles. _If we're not fighting back, what_ are _we going to do?_

 _Watch,_ Altair says. _Ezio, take out your apple._

 _What are you planning?_

And is it Desmond's imagination? Or is there a _feeling_ of a smile in Altair's words as he says, _be patient, and you will see._

And then Altair is quiet for a moment, clearly thinking. Then something between them seems to _sharpen_ , like a knife sliding out of a sheathe. It doesn't worry Desmond, though—he knows its Altair holding the metaphorical knife, and if there's one thing his ancestor knows, it's blades.

 _What are you doing?_ Ezio is alarmed, and Desmond hurries to try and reassure him. He hasn't even had a chance to explain Altair to Ezio, other than saying the man is his ancestor, and absolutely trustworthy. What little time they've had for explaining has been mostly focused on Juno and the apples. Before he has a chance, though, Altair slides in.

 _She has an apple,_ he says. _It's her only weapon, and if she can't use it, she can't hurt anyone._

 _Wait,_ Desmond says, totally distracted from trying to explain anything. _You can do that? One of those tricks you figured out is getting rid of her apple?_

 _No,_ Altair says. _Sorry, I can see why that was misleading. I can sort of… ward it. I can use my apple to block her from controlling minds in this time and in this place._

 _That's still something,_ Desmond says. He can't help feeling excited. _That's a big something._

 _I can center it on Ezio,_ Altair says. _As he's here, and we're… connected, it'll be the easiest thing._

 _And that will protect him?_

 _Him and anyone relatively nearby. I don't know. Let me concentrate. And Ezio?_

 _Yea?_

 _I need you to go out and stand in front of her,_ Altair says. _Taunt her, talk to her, do whatever you want, just keep her close and angry, if possible._

Ezio brightens, because _that_ he can do. "On it," he says out loud, and drops lightly from his rooftop perch to stand behind her. He clears his throat and she turns around, first surprised and then angry to see him standing there. As Ezio launches into a tirade, Desmond feels the knife edge of Altair's apple sharpen.

 _Desmond_ , his ancestor says. As always, his voice is calm. For Desmond, who at this point is staring out through Ezio's eyes, watching Juno as closely as he can, it's reassuring. _I need you to hold onto me. Tight. I'm not directly connected to Ezio, but I need to be as close to him as possible if this is going to work. And I'm sorry, I really am, but I think this might hurt._

 _I can handle it_ , Desmond says, thinking of that night in the Temple when he'd come so close to dying. _I've been hurt before._

For a moment the world seems to go silent. Desmond pulls his ancestors close, and imagines for a second that instead of the gentle noises of Ezio's Venice, he can hear Altair's soft breathing, alone in his room at Masyaf.

And then Ezio calls Juno a particularly foul and inventive name, and her face twists up in anger, and she launches herself at him. Ezio, to his credit, doesn't so much as twitch away from her.

She's very nearly on top of him when an arc of light bursts from Altair, arcing through Desmond, toward Juno. Desmond holds his breath, waiting to see what's going to happen—because if Altair is wrong about being able to do this, then Ezio is a dead man.

-/-

It's Lucy's turn to watch Desmond, although she's almost nodding off at her post. It's been an unbearably slow day, with nothing to watch on the animus but a sort of blurred static. It's impossible to tell whether it's some kind of animus glitch or whether Desmond's intentionally preventing them from seeing whatever he's seeing in Ezio's memory (he knows she's not what she says she is, maybe he doesn't trust her enough to let her see). But either way, this keeps happening. Desmond has too many secrets, and after a day full of watching nothing, it's really starting to _irritate_ her.

And then, she watches as his hand—the one with the oddly shaped scars burned into it—flashes golden, flaring so brightly that Lucy's mouth drops open. Holy _shit_. She tears her eyes away from Desmond to glance around, but Shaun's taking his turn at napping, and Rebecca is down the hall in the bathroom. There's no one to bear witness to whatever's going on with Desmond but Lucy—when she gathers her wits enough to start thinking again, she fumbles for her phone and starts snapping pictures.

-/-

Altair's power surges through Desmond, into Ezio, and out of the man's hand were he's holding his apple. Altair launches his power like a thrown dagger, but it blooms out of the apple like a shield. It glows, bright and golden, and the space within it feels warm in a way that goes beyond simple temperature. Ezio relaxes slightly, and even when the shield fades from view and Juno steps right up into his personal space, he's not as afraid as he should be.

She reaches for her apple, wraps her hand around it, and focuses—

Nothing happens. Not a thing.

 _It worked,_ Desmond says, letting out a shaky laugh. _Oh my God, it actually worked_.

Ezio grins, something a little predatory, and focuses on Juno. She's a little bit taller than him, but without her apple to use as a weapon, she's lost most of her power to intimidate. "Get out of here," he says. "Leave this city, leave this time. This apple is never going to be yours."

He smiles at her—the same charming smile he'd so stupidly flashed at her the first time he saw her—then turns his back and walks away. Juno doesn't follow, but when Ezio turns the corner at the end of the road and glances back the way he'd come, Juno is already gone.

 _Out of this century, hopefully_ , Desmond says. _She'll cause trouble somewhere else, but this time… this time, I think we_ won _._

 **-/-**

 **So I think that went a little bit better than Layla and Berg's fight with Juno's goons? I hope? (You can't see it, but I'm making a nervous faces at my computer screen).**


	23. Chapter 23

When Desmond comes out of the animus, he looks charged, excited, _exhilarated_ in a way that completely baffles Lucy. What could he possibly have seen in Ezio's memories that would make him react like _that_?

He doesn't answer when she asks, just grins like their earlier argument doesn't mean anything. He's so— _urgh_ but he's so _frustrating_. As he bounces around the warehouse, acting like he's just won something, Lucy's mood gets progressively more and more sour. It's a relief when Vidic emails her that he's sent someone with the things she'll need to hack Desmond's email. It'll give her an excuse to get out of the building at least, and see someone that she doesn't have to lie to.

Lucy tells Rebecca that she's going out for supplies (Rebecca responds with a list of yogurt flavors she wants, but doesn't otherwise argue), grabs a jacket, and heads out. Vidic's instructions had been terse and to the point, as always. She's supposed to go to a coffee shop, sit down in the third table from the door, and order hot chocolate. The woman that's coming to meet her is some tech—not a Templar, that would be too dangerous for Lucy, this close to the Assassins. She's just some Abstergo employee, high ranking enough to be trusted but low enough that no one watching would be able to draw a straight line between her and Vidic.

The tech's name is Layla Hassan.

-/-

In January of 2012, Layla decides she desperately needs to take a leave of absence. She's been there for years, working shit jobs that she _knows_ she's too good for, when what she really wants to do is work on the animus project. _That_ would be a challenge, and she's been doing everything she can since the day she was hired, applying for every open position, and still—nothing.

So she needs to leave. She tries in January, but of course she's the most capable person working at her current position, and her boss keeps asking her to stay 'just a few more weeks,' or 'just until this project wraps up,' until finally in September she puts her foot down and says _no_. And her boss says well fine okay, but on your way out we need you to deliver a package.

It gets her out of the office at least, and the package she's supposed to be taking with her is going to Italy, which isn't… anywhere near where she's going, but she's never been there and so why not?

Besides, they're expensing the trip and she's always wanted to fly first class.

And of course, first class turns out to be just as dull as any other plane trip, and Layla only lasts half an hour before he decides to start poking at the package she's been sent to deliver. It's obviously something important because Abstergo's putting a _lot_ of effort into getting it delivered, and Layla's never been able to stop herself from acting on impulse.

It turns out to be a flash drive, and when she plugs it into her computer and starts poring through the code, it doesn't take long to piece together what it's supposed to be used for. Someone's been messing with Abstergo's servers—they've worked out a sort of back door into the email system, setting it up so that emails can pass from one email address that shouldn't exist and into a second email address that shouldn't exist.

It's clever, and _exactly_ the way Layla would have done things if she was the one to set it up—in fact, it's so similar to her style that for a little while she wonders if this is some kind of trap. Someone's hacking Abstergo, they're working in almost exactly the same way Layla does, and _she's_ the one sent to deliver the fix? What if they're thinking about blaming her for the initial hacking, and this is all some kind of elaborate trap?

She dismisses that pretty quickly though—she's just not sure that any of the people she works with would be smart enough to notice the similarities. So she pulls the flashdrive out, deletes any traces of it from her laptop, and watches movies for the rest of the too long flight.

Then after the flight, there's a taxi ride, and then because of a language barrier issue, Layla gets out four blocks too early and walks the rest of the way, which makes her seventeen minutes late. The person she's supposed to meet—a tired, vaguely familiar blonde nursing a _far_ too large mug of coffee (not that Layla's really one to judge)—informs her of this as soon as they meet.

"Layla Hassan," Layla says, holding out a hand.

"Lucy Stillman," the blonde says, shaking it. "You're seventeen minutes late."

"I just got off a plane," Layla says defensively. "And I'm only delivering a USB stick, it's not like the fate of the world is riding on this." After all, she thinks bitterly, she can't even get a spot on the animus project. She's not exactly going to be doing anything as exciting as saving the world anytime soon.

"You… nevermind." Lucy gives a sigh and gestures for Layla to sit. "I know you're not involved in any of this, and—trust me, you don't _want_ to."

Layla's interest is _decidedly_ peaked by now, and she kind of does want to know what's going on.

"So just… look, hand over the flashdrive and we're done here."

"Sure," Layla says. "Yea, I could do that. _Or_ —" She leans over the table and lowers her voice. "I've seen what's on that USB—"

"What? Hassan, listen, you weren't supposed to look at that."

"I looked," Layla says, and smirks at Lucy's expression. "And from what I can see, you know absolutely nothing about the technical side of things. Otherwise you wouldn't need this little toy. Now, I can hand this over, and you can… what, read new messages as they come in?" She shrugs. "Sure, yea. Fine. I guess if that's all you want, you can just take it now." She reaches into her bag, pulls out the USB, and puts it in the middle of the table, between the two of them. Lucy's eyes dart down toward it, but she doesn't move to take it.

"You think you can do more than that?"

"Maybe," Layla says. "If you give me some more information, I might be able to help you out.

Lucy considers it. Then she nods, and leans forward. Layla hides a grin. "I'm working… undercover."

"For who?" Layla asks. "Abstergo? Is this like corporate espionage shit?"

"I wish."

 _God_ , Layla wants to know more about what's going on. "Okay," she says. "Then what is it?"

Lucy hesitates. "Above your pay grade," she says. "But I think we can still work something out. I have this… I don't know what he is. But he knows things he shouldn't, he's doing things he shouldn't be able to, and I need to know more about him."

"So you're planning to intercept his emails?" Layla asks. "That's a sloppy way to brute force things, and judging by what I saw here—" She taps the USB. "He has someone on his side that's going to be able to tell what you're doing."

"And you can do it in a… less brute force way?" Lucy asks.

Layla grins. _"Yes_ ," she says. Her plans can wait a little while, they hadn't exactly given her a time she had to be back at work. She can spend a little time here, because the thing is, she's _just_ figured out why she recognizes Lucy.

Lucy Stillman works on the animus project.

"Here's mynumber," Lucy says, scrawling something on a napkin and passing it over. "Text me when you're set up somewhere, and I'll get you what you need to know."

"Just get me access to your system," Layla says. She copies Lucy, writing her own number and passing it across the table. "And I'll be able to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about this guy." She stands up, holding up her hand with Lucy's number scrawled on it. "Thanks for your digits."

And then, she's gone.

-/-

Lucy isn't quite sure how she feels about Layla Hassan. She doesn't trust her, but she doesn't trust anyone anymore, so that doesn't mean much. The thing about becoming a traitor, is that after you see how easy it is, it's hard not to assume everyone else is ready to do the same thing at the drop of a hat.

She shakes her head sharply and stands up, grabbing the flashdrive Layla had left behind. This will be a start, and after she sees how that works out, she can always change her mind about getting in touch with Layla. She'd given her the number to one of her burner phones, one Rebecca had set up for her, and she's been assured it's untraceable. It's not too late to just pitch the thing in a lake, if she decides not to trust Layla.

But she's just a techie, when it all comes down to it. She very clearly knows nothing about the Assassins or Templars, Lucy's developed a knack for being able to tell who's involved and who's not. Layla is definitely not involved. So she takes the jump drive, commits Layla's number to memory, then stops to grab a few supplies so she'll look like she was busy doing that the whole time. She heads back to the hideout.

"How was it?" Rebecca asks, when Lucy comes back in, lugging her bags of food. "Get everything we need?"

Lucy feels the bulge of the jump drive in her jacket pocket, the memory of Layla's number like a weight in her mind, and nods. "Yea," she says. "I think I did."

 **-/-**

 **Shorter chapter this time around, but this seemed like a good stopping point so...**

 **I've been thinking about bringing 2012-Layla in for a little while now, but I was worried it would end up too confusing... hopefully it's not too bad so far? :)**


	24. Chapter 24

Bayek can only take one person at a time back to 2012 with him, and everyone agrees he should start with Elina. For an eight year old girl that's been held hostage for—according to her— _like, probably forever_ (William says closer to two weeks), she's holding up well. But she's visibly tired, and Bayek is worried there might be injuries he can't see, and in some ways she reminds him of Khemu.

He takes her back first, after Layla has carefully explained to her that Bayek isn't the same as Juno, and when he uses the apple it's not going to hurt anyone. She still looks suspicious when she steps up and lets him hold her hand, but then again maybe that's a good thing. With the father she has, this probably won't be the last time someone ever comes after her.

Elina perks up a little when they actually do the time travelling, but doesn't actually seem to come alive until they're back in the warehouse. She lets go of Bayek's hand, swaying just a little from tiredness, and he sees her scan the room, trying to orient herself.

Then she sees Berg, and her face lights up.

Bayek crosses his arms and leans back against a nearby table (one of the techs _tsks_ and shoos him away from a computer she'd been dismantling on top of it), watching Elina call out to her dad and run across the room to him. She seems a little off balance, but she makes it okay and Berg looks happier than Bayek's ever seen him.

"We're going to have to start a daycare program here soon with all these kids running around," mutters the tech that had shooed Bayek away from her computer. _Daycare,_ whatever it means,isn't a word that had existed in Bayek's time, so it comes through his translator still in English. But if it has something to do with the kids, it has something to do with Khemu, so he files it away to ask Layla about later. Then he pulls out the apple and goes back to get the other two.

He takes William back next, then goes back for Layla.

"Ready?" he asks, holding up the apple. "Or do you want to do it?"

"No," Layla says, waving a dismissive hand. "I think you're still better at it than I am. But—hang on, can we stop and talk for a minute first?"

He frowns. "We can talk when we get back."

"I know," Layla says. "It's just… I'd rather not risk William or Elina overhearing this."

"Alright," Bayek says. "But let's get a little farther away from the Temple. I don't want to get distracted talking and not notice if Juno planted extra guards or something nearby."

"Not to mention this place is just creepy," Layla mutters, and the two of them start walking. It's a good five minutes before she actually gets around to what she wants to talk about, though.

"I think something just happened," Layla says. "In the past."

"What kind of something?"

"I…" He glances sideways at her, just in time to see her face twist up in frustration for a second before she smoothes it away. "I'm not sure. I _think_ it might be something in my past, that's why I wanted to talk to you. When I went back in time and rescued Khemu, that changed things for you, right?"

"A little," Bayek says. "I assume. I don't remember any differences, only what happened to me originally."

"Okay," Layla says. "Sure, but… sorry if this is painful, but you remember finding his… his body, right?"

"Yes," Bayek says, voice tight. Even though he knows Khemu is safe and sound in 2012, with an informal army of Assassins and Templars around him, the memory of his son's body is still a painful one. "We found him, he was taken to be mummified, and he was entombed in Siwa."

Layla winces. "Sorry," she says. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. But my point is, I tried to cut things as close as possible, so your timeline would _mostly_ stay the same. You would still have seen Khemu get captured and then hurt, and then you would have assumed he was dead, and done… exactly what you would have done if he was _really_ dead. So the only thing that would have actually changed is that you wouldn't have had a body to bury."

"Layla…" He takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry, but is this getting to a point any time soon? Because I don't really want to talk about it."

"Sorry," Layla says quickly. "But when that changed, did you… I don't know, feel anything? Could you tell?"

Bayek thinks back on it. There's been so much going on ever since he first came to the future, and of course when Layla went and saved Khemu there had been _Khemu_ to worry about, and his injuries, and so there was never really time to think about that… feeling.

"Possibly," he admits.

"Right!" Layla says. She looks almost relieved to have Bayek agree with her. "Yea, exactly, it's just like—this _feeling_."

She seems so excited about it that Bayek starts to feel suspicious. "Layla, did you… feel something?"

"Yea." She stops and so Bayek stops too, and they look at each other.

There were times, especially after they first met, when Bayek sometimes felt like Layla could tell what he was thinking just by a look. But after what they've been through together, Bayek is starting to feel like it goes both ways. He doesn't have to have been Layla in the animus to figure out what she's getting at.

"You think something changed in your past," he says.

"Yes," Layla says. "I just… I don't know. I have this feeling like I'm… disconnected from things, I guess? Like—I can't describe it."

"No," Bayek says. "I know what you mean, I think. It's like you said, after you saved Khemu, there was this…" He trails off, thinking. "Like a small part of my past didn't belong to me anymore. I still remembered the way things had always been, but I… knew that if I went back, they wouldn't be the same."

"That's how I feel," Layla says. "Only… I don't think it was something small. I think someone's just something pretty big in my past. I don't know what it is, but it's just… gnawing at me."

Bayek sighs. "Every time we start to understand what's going on here, something new comes along to complicate everything."

"I'm not trying to complicate things," Layla says. "I'm just…"

"I know," Bayek says. "And we'll figure it out. The important thing is that _you_ won't be affected by whatever it was, just like I never forgot what happened to Khemu before you changed my past. Something… I don't know, maybe the fact that we've already time traveled, is _protecting_ us. You're not going to change."

"But I want to know what happened to me!" Layla protests. "What if it's something awful, Bayek?"

"Then we'll figure out what it is, and we'll fix it."

"What if it's Juno? And she found me in the past, and she's doing God knows what?"

Bayek pauses. Honestly, the whole idea of Juno interfering with their pasts is _confusing_ to him—but to Layla, who's always been afraid of Juno, it must be terrifying. He steps forward, and wraps her in a hug. Layla stands frozen for a second, too confused to react. "Layla," Bayek says quietly. "Trust me. It's going to be alright."

"But, Bayek…"

"Layla, do you _trust_ me?"

She sighs, and hugs him back for a quick second. "Yes, Bayek, I trust you."

"Good. Then whatever it is that's changed in your past, we'll figure it out and we'll fix it." Bayek reaches for the apple, and holds it up. "Ready to go home?"

-/-

When they get back, the warehouse is louder and more… excited than Bayek is used to seeing it. He scans the room instinctively, looking for Khemu, expecting to find him right in the thick of things, as usual. Before he can find him, though, Layla says, _"Oh,"_ and points.

"Look," she says. "I've never seen Berg like that."

He follows her pointing finger, then grins broadly when he sees what she sees. Berg has his daughter in his arms and he's looking at her, beaming, half laughing as she says something to him. "Well look at that," he says. Berg looks up at them then, and Bayek nods at him.

"He's coming over," Layla says, and sure enough in a few more seconds Berg has pushed his way through the group of people between them.

"Thank you," Berg says. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"I think I do," Bayek says, because of _course_ he does.

"Well," Berg admits. "Maybe." He glances down at his daughter. "Elina, did you thank them?"

"Thank you," Elina says, still clinging to her father. Berg knows, because Bayek has told him, that Elina is close to the same age as Elijah and Khemu, but she looks much smaller.

Bayek says _you're welcome_ , knowing she won't understand him, then glances pointedly at Layla to translate for him. She does, then excuses herself. Bayek lets her go—maybe she needs to work through what they'd talked about back at the Temple on her own for a while.

"I'm going to take her upstairs," Berg says. "I think Khemu's up there, and I thought—well, it wouldn't be a bad idea for the two of them to make friends."

"Well, he doesn't need my permission," Bayek says. "And I think... I would feel better about Khemu spending time with her than with Elijah."

Berg nods. "I was thinking the exact same thing."

Bayek nods. Elina, from the very little he's seen of her so far, seems like a perfectly normal girl. Elijah is different. He doesn't act like a child, or speak like a child—he still says he's here for some purpose, that he _just knows_ he's supposed to be here, and there's just something… off about that.

"Why don't we take her up now?" he suggests. "If everyone's down here, you might be able to let her have some quiet. And I assume Khemu's up there?" He hasn't seen his son around since coming back, which means he's probably upstairs, probably with Elijah.

Berg agrees, so the two of them leave the crowd—which is more or less starting to settle down and get back to work, as people lose interest in Elina's arrival—and head upstairs. Berg talks quietly to Elina as they go, explaining that there's another kid here for her to be friends with. Elina perks up and listens raptly to him, and when they find Khemu (and, sure enough, Elijah), she squirms her way to the floor and heads toward the two boys.

"Hi," Elina says, stopping a few feet away. She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, hands clasped in front of her.

"Hi," Khemu says, grinning at her. He glances up, looking not at all nervous—Bayek remembers how many kids Khemu had made friends with back in Siwa, and isn't surprised to see him reaching out now. "Wanna… you wanna come play?"

He says the words—in English—very slowly, with obvious effort. Then he glances at Elijah, as if to double check he's said it right. Elijah nods solemnly, and Khemu flushes with satisfaction. Then he looks back at Elina.

She shrugs and says, "Okay," and for about thirty seconds Bayek thinks this plan is going to work. With Elina here, Khemu will have a new friend to spend time with, and Bayek won't have to worry about what Elijah's doing to his son. Elina sits down next to Khemu, and he leans in close to say something—

And then Khemu waves Elijah over, and Elina shifts sideways to make room for him, and all three of them end up sitting in the middle of the floor, whispering to each other with their backs to the two men. Elijah looks a little uncomfortable, like he doesn't know what to do with suddenly having two other kids to talk to, but he's still _obviously_ a part of the group, and it doesn't look like either of them is planning to forget him anytime soon.

"I don't know why we didn't see that coming, really," Berg mutters, crossing his arms. "Although I suppose there's still a chance that Elina and Khemu will start to rethink their friendship with Elijah once they see what it's like to have _normal_ friends around."

He says this with flat disdain, but Bayek is looking at Elijah. From this angle he can't see the boy's face, just the back of his head, and he looks so… normal. For the first time, Bayek feels a fluttering of doubt. This boy is Khemu's best friend, like it or not—maybe he deserves a little bit of Bayek's trust.

"Bayek?" Berg prods.

"Yes," Bayek murmurs. "Maybe… maybe Khemu and Elina will be good for each other."

Then he heads back downstairs without another word. There are some things he wants to think about. Between _what to do with Elijah_ and _who's been messing with Layla's past_ , Bayek thinks he has enough things to worry over for a good long time.

 **-/-**

 **A little bit of a slow moving chapter, but hopefully it'll work as a little bit of a breather-feels like there's been a lot of action-y chapters lately, so this was a nice break, to sit down and write something like this. :)**


	25. Chapter 25

Not very long after Desmond, Ezio, and Altair ward Ezio against Juno, the Templars raid the safehouse where Desmond, Lucy, Rebecca, and Shaun are staying. Desmond remembers this from the first time around, and so it's hard to be surprised. He thinks he does an alright job of acting like he is, at least, and no one seems to notice that he's a little too prepared, or that he has his things already packed up before the Templars get there.

And then they're running, and Desmond knows the Templars won't catch them, because they're not really _trying_ —they want him with Lucy, where she can keep an eye on him and what he's doing in the animus. It doesn't even take Rebecca long to lose the Templars that are following them once they're all loaded into the van.

And then they're on their way to Monteriggioni.

Desmond can't help feeling a little bit excited about that. Even last time, when the bleeding effect had been _so_ much worse and his life had been mostly a blur, he'd liked being there. It's Ezio's home, always will be, and Desmond feels protected there, no matter how much things have changed between his time and his ancestor's.

 _It's a ruin_ , Altair says, as the town, and then eventually the ancient manor come into sight. His ancestor's voice is stronger now, a little clearer with each day that passes. And not just his voice, but the _feel_ of him—there are times when Altair seems so close, Desmond could swear he's seeing through his eyes. And then there are times when Altair is just a distance presence, and Desmond will get a snatch of Altair's day to day life—his concentration as he helps the novices with their training, or irritation as he wades through a pile of paperwork.

He's getting used to it.

Ezio is a little more distant, an occasional visitor in his head, but then he doesn't have the same experience with the apple that Desmond does.

 _It's old,_ Desmond agrees, hopping out of the van and eyeing the building he'd seen so recently in the animus. _But it's not a ruin._

"Desmond," Shaun calls. "Think you could stop ogling and help us get the things out of the van before the Templars catch us?"

"Sure," Desmond says, snapping out of his distraction and hurrying back to help the others. "Sorry."

"There's not much to do," Rebecca assures him. "Everything's set up so we can put it together quickly and have it up and running in a few minutes."

"Cool," Desmond says. "Good. Great."

And it is, because that means he'll be able to get back on his email soon and let everyone know he's moved and that he's fine—that's what he's thinking about, the whole time he's helping to unload, and as soon as the power's on, he boots up the computer and checks his email.

-/-

It's early in the morning when Bayek heads downstairs. Too early for anyone to be in the animus yet, but as he rounds a corner into the main room, he sees a light on. It's probably nothing, he tells himself, even as he drops into a crouch and slips into the shadows. It's _probably_ nothing, but…

Then he gets into the room, and straightens up when he sees Elijah. The Sage is alone (something of a rarity these days, now that he has Khemu _and_ Elina to spend time with), perched precariously on the very edge of a folding chair as he hunches over a computer, cautiously typing away, one careful letter at a time.

"What are you writing?" Bayek calls, and Elijah jumps so high he knocks his chair over and sends it almost crashing into the desk next to him.

"I—"

The open vulnerability on his face is only there for a moment before he pulls his face back into the stony mask he always wears for Bayek, but that glimpse is enough to make him uncomfortable. Elijah stares at Bayek, then very carefully presses one last key on the computer.

"What were you doing?" Bayek asks again.

"Nothing."

He speaks in careless English, which feels like a deliberate choice. Although Bayek's translator is enough for him to understand, the language barrier still keeps them at a distance. Bayek knows Elijah can speak perfectly good Egyptian—he and Khemu can talk together for hours, and Elijah's Egyptian is oddly accented but perfectly understandable.

"Nothing?" Bayek asks, crossing his arms and frowning.

"I was just sitting," Elijah says, and slips off the chair.

"You were doing something on the computer." Bayek strides forward and looks past him, but of course he's still just barely getting a grasp on what a computer _is_ , he has no idea what Elijah had been doing on it.

"It's none of your business," Elijah says. "Alright?"

Bayek sighs and squats down in front of Elijah. He studies the boy's face, his wild hair and mismatched eyes, his blank expression as Elijah stares right back at him. "I know you're not like this all the time," he says. "I know, because if you acted like this to Khemu, he wouldn't be spending so much time with you."

He pauses, waiting for Elijah to answer, but the boy just doesn't open up around him—or around anyone really, as far as Bayek can tell, other than Khemu.

"Why don't you trust us?" Bayek asks. "If you could open up, and talk to us, then maybe you wouldn't need to be sneaking around and doing… whatever it is that you're doing with the computer."

"Nothing," Elijah says, and it seems almost reflexive.

Bayek sighs and straightens up, shaking his head. Elijah makes it all too easy for people to give up on him, and in a way that's sad. But on the other hand, Elijah knows things he shouldn't, and Bayek doesn't entirely trust him not to _do_ things he shouldn't, and he know just enough about computers to know that Elijah could do a lot of damage. "Alright," he says. "Then just go, alright?"

Elijah hesitates, then runs past Bayek and upstairs. Probably to wake Khemu up. Bayek sighs, then turns back to the computer. He doesn't know how to find out what Elijah had done to it, but he knows who will. So he sits there, and waits until Layla comes down, yawning and barely awake.

"What are you doing?" she asks. Unlike Elijah, she speaks in Egyptian, for him, and the conversation is automatically more comfortable. Not stilted and awkwardly relayed through a translator, like his conversation with Elijah only minutes before had been. "Looking for computer lessons?"

"Trying to figure out what Elijah was doing on it," Bayek says.

"He was down here?" Layla asks.

Bayek nods.

"Well," Layla says. "Move over." She shoves him a little, and he Bayek moves obligingly aside. "You'll never get it figured out yourself."

So she sits there, hunched over the computer, for all of about thirty seconds. Then she leans back, and frowns intensely at the computer.

"What is it?" Bayek asks.

"He sent an email," Layla says slowly, and Bayek has been here long enough to at least recognize the word.

"To who?" he asks. "The Templars? Assassins? Someone worse?"

"To Desmond," Layla says quietly.

-/-

Rebecca had promised they'd have everything unpacked and ready to use in less than half an hour, and that turns out to be true. Desmond hangs around for a little while, waiting to see if they're going to want him back in the animus right away, but all three of the others seem exhausted. When Shaun suggests waiting until tomorrow to get Desmond back in the animus, they all agree at once.

So Rebecca goes to bed, stretching out on her sleeping back with her mp3 plugged in and a peaceful smile on her face. Shaun folds himself into a corner with a book, and proceeds to completely lose himself in whatever he's reading about. Lucy is off to one side, texting someone (a Templar, Desmond assumes). He's too tired to even think about asking her about it.

Instead, he wanders over to the computer, and sits down. The computer takes its time booting up, so Desmond's eyes stray over the walls. His gaze pauses on the statue of Altair, like it always does, but with his ancestor's almost constant presence in his head, the statue is a little less impressive than it had been the first time around. Instead, what really catches Desmond's attention is one of the other statues.

Amunet.

He sits with his chin in his hand, looking at the statue of the man that had once been Bayek's wife, wondering. Bayek never talks about her to him, and Layla doesn't talk much more about her. All Desmond knows is that her name used to be Aya, and after she and Bayek lost their son, she turned her back on that and took the name Amunet.

The statue's features are worn down and smooth from centuries of erosion, and it seems a little sad. Desmond can't help wondering if Bayek knows this statue is here, and what he'd say if he found out.

The computer beeps to inform him it's done booting up, and that he has mail. Probably Layla, Desmond thinks as he navigates through the layers of extra security Layla had shown him how to put in place. Sure enough, when he finally gets to his inbox he sees that the message waiting for him _is_ from Layla's email.

But then he opens it, and it's immediately obvious that Layla isn't the one that wrote it.

 _From: Temp Account_

 _To: Desmond Miles_

 _Date: September 16, 2012, 8:28 PM_

 _Subject: No Subject_

 _Hello._

 _My name is Elijah, and I'm sorry to have to bother you when you don't have any idea who I am, but I have something important to talk to you about which didn't seem like it could wait._

 _I just found out that you are my father. Maybe you know that already by now, but maybe you don't, and since I know you're doing important work, this seemed like the only way I could get in touch with you. I couldn't wait._

 _I'm sorry if this isn't the email you wanted to get. I know a lot of things, but I never know how to approach people, and I never know how to make people like me once I try. I'm just asking you to give me a chance, please_

And then the email cuts off abruptly, as if Elijah had sent it before he'd had a chance to finish completely. Desmond leans back in his chair and studies it, frowning. He's not entirely sure what to think, honestly. If Layla hadn't already emailed him to say that his son is with them, and that he's a little weird, he would have just assumed this was some kind of bad joke. The email doesn't sound like something a kid would write, or at least… it doesn't sound like a kid up until that last line, the one Elijah hadn't had a chance to finish. Desmond stares at it, and something in his stomach twists, and he has no idea how to answer.

-/-

Much later that night, when Lucy has Desmond's (hacked) emails open in front of her, she has even less of an idea of what to do with Elijah's email.

"Code," she mumbles finally, because there's no way Desmond actually has a son. The Templars would have picked up on it before now, and anyway what kind of kid talks like the person that sent this email? But at least, in a way, the email is a good sign. They're smart to keep their email encrypted like this, but it's so _obviously_ not a real email that it can't possibly be that difficult to break either.

She smiles as she forwards the email to Layla, adding _see what you can do with this_ as a subject line. Layla's obviously sitting up waiting for her, because Lucy gets a response within minutes.

 _From: Layla Hassan_

 _To: Lucy Stillman_

 _Date: September 17, 2012, 2:04 AM_

 _Subject: RE: See what you can do with this_

 _I'd be able to do a lot more if I was onsite with his computer. I'm a programmer, not a codebreaker. Any chance you can get me there to have a look?_

Lucy rolls her eyes and huffs, but considers the question. Honestly, it wouldn't be _that_ hard, would it? She could lure everyone out of the hideout for a while, she knows Desmond must be getting tired of being stuck in the animus all the time, and Rebecca and Shaun never seem to say no to an excuse to bicker with each other.

 _From: Lucy Stillman_

 _To: Layla Hassan_

 _Date: September 17, 2012, 2:10 AM_

 _Subject: RE: See what you can do with this_

 _I'll work something out._

 ** _-/-_**

 **What is this nonsense, a new chapter and it's not even 1:00 in the morning? (Guys I went to bed at a normal time last night instead of staying up to write, great feeling, 10 out of 10 would get a full night's sleep again)**


	26. Chapter 26

Desmond is uncomfortable with the fact that Lucy had decided to get rid of all of them for the afternoon. She hadn't been obvious about it, just dropped hints that maybe they should take the day off and as long as they were careful, Abstergo won't find them. She's probably right, they _do_ need a day off, and since she's telling Abstergo everything that happens they're _not_ in danger of being found.

But she hadn't done this last time, which means she's doing it because of something that Desmond's changed since he's been here. That bothers him.

So he tells Lucy he's okay with spending the day in Monteriggioni, and then after Rebecca and Shaun have gone off to do their errands, he circles back around to the sanctuary. He stays quiet and still, with Altair and Ezio in the forefront of his mind, all three of them hyper alert as Desmond creeps in through the hidden tunnel that leads to the sanctuary. There are voices ahead of him, echoing so much in the tunnels that Desmond can't make out the words. He inches forward until he's close enough for the echoes to resolve themselves into being intelligible, then stops in the shadows behind Altair's statue, just out of sight of whoever's inside the sanctuary.

"…who is this guy, then?" someone asks, and Desmond feels a shock of confusion run through him because he _knows_ that voice. That's Layla, but what is she doing here, working with Lucy?

"Just a guy," Lucy says, voice cool.

"Are you going to explain any of what this is?" Layla asks. "Like, this whole place that you guys are just camping out in?"

"No." Lucy's voice is sweetly innocent.

"This place is _weird_ ," Layla says. "Is it like some secret society stuff?"

"Maybe," Lucy says, and her tone is exactly the same as her last answer had been. Desmond, on the other hand, feels… relieved? Layla sounds so completely clueless about what's going on here that he figures it out. This isn't the same Layla he knows, it's not the same one that's been through an animus and gone back in time with him to be here. This is the Layla from 2012, who hasn't been through any of that yet.

So the good news is, at least there's some kind of an explanation. Layla hasn't just arbitrarily decided to betray them. The bad news is that if anyone can figure out what's going on here, Desmond's pretty sure it'd be her.

"Can you get at his emails or not?" Lucy asks, interrupting Desmond's train of thought.

"Done," Layla says. "Piece of cake. It's encrypted, but it's like… honestly, if I was going to hide a bunch of emails, I'd do it exactly the same way. So getting in was pretty easy."

"Good," Lucy says. "Great." Desmond hears footsteps echoing across the sanctuary, and imagines her hurrying across the room to read all his secrets over Layla's shoulder. "So what kind of emails has he been sending?"

"Let's see," Layla says, and Desmond panics. There are all kinds of secrets in those emails that neither of them can be allowed to see. For one thing, if Layla sees that Desmond's been writing to _her_ … there's really no good way to explain it away. And then the contents of the emails…"

He panics.

There's no way they don't hear him as he comes stumbling through the entrance, making enough noise that he's _sure_ they're going to hear him, and have enough time to pretend that they're not doing anything they shouldn't.

Desmond doesn't have time to think of a good plan, and all he wants to do is get the two of them away from those emails. He's not sure what to do once they're gone—maybe just smash the whole damn computer, at this rate—but he knows that letting Layla or Lucy get a look at his emails is not going to end well. There's a reason they encrypted it so heavily, after all.

By the time he gets back into the sanctuary, Layla and Lucy have backed off from the computer, they're just sitting around like they're the two most innocent people in the world. "Uh…" He fakes confusion, which at least gives him an excuse to stare at Layla, pretending he's never seen her before when really he's just taken aback by how _young_ she looks. Five years really made a difference, for her.

"Desmond," Lucy says, frowning at him like _he's_ the intruder. "What are you doing back so early?"

"I got tired," he lies. "And I came back. Who's she?"

"I'm Layla," Layla says, and Desmond sort of wants to smile at how (relatively) honest she's being. He's pretty sure that if it someone had asked him or Lucy that question, their first instinct at this point would have been to lie.

"Well what are you doing here?" he asks.

"Listen," Layla says with a little snort. "I _wish_ I knew. I just…"

But she trails off then, and when Desmond follows her gaze he realizes he's staring at the animus.

Right. Desmond remembers Layla telling him that before she'd actually gone in an animus herself, all she'd wanted was to be allowed to work on Abstergo's animus project. Is that how she got dragged into this?

"That's an animus," she says. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," Lucy says, when Desmond stays quiet.

"Are you guys supposed to have one of those?" Layla asks.

Desmond and Lucy glance at each other, and for a second share a look that makes them seem almost like they're on the same side. Lucy looks away first, and says, "Yes," without any elaboration.

"Do you think I could get a look at it?" Layla asks.

"I think Rebecca would probably kill all of us if any of us started taking her baby apart," Lucy says, in what might be the first truly honest thing she's said all day. But Layla keeps glancing at the animus anyway, and Desmond takes the opportunity to step closer to Lucy.

"Lucy," Desmond says quietly. "She can't be here."

"She's not a Templar," Lucy whispers back. "You don't have to worry about that."

"Listen," Desmond says. "You and I have an understanding. We're both keeping secrets from each other." Not that he didn't already know what her secrets were, of course. "Dragging someone else into it isn't going to help anything."

"Well maybe if you'd be a little bit more _honest_ with me," Lucy hisses. "I wouldn't have had to bring in outside help."

"Lucy!" Desmond accidentally lets his voice rise, loud enough for Layla to look over at him and arch her eyebrows. " _She can't be here_."

"Who do you think you are?" Lucy snaps, and she's so angry she actually takes a step forward, toward him. Her hands are clenched into fists at her side, and Desmond realizes he might have accidentally pushed her too far, with all his secret keeping. But that makes _him_ angry too, because how dare she be pissed at him when she's keeping secrets from him, too?

"She leaves," Desmond says, pointing at Layla.

"Excuse me," Layla says, raising her voice. "Who even _are_ you?"

"Look," Desmond says. Crap. He doesn't really want to hurt Layla, because he genuinely likes her, and it's not her fault that she got dragged into this shit. "Please don't take this personally, I just—you can't be here."

Her face turns an interesting mix of colors, expression shifting between anger and hurt and finally settling on a kind of stubborn determination that Desmond likes a lot more when she's on his side. "Fine," she says, very cool and calm. " _Fine_. But for the record—you, whoever you are, you're a dick."

She turns and storms out, so pissed that Desmond knows he's going to have to deal with it somehow, make it _better_ somehow. He just doesn't know how—he'll have to ask (his) Layla later, how to smooth things over with (this) Layla.

"You're keeping secrets from me," Lucy says, when Layla is gone. "Desmond, why in the actual _fuck_ did you think I wouldn't be trying to figure out what they are?"

Desmond closes his eyes for several seconds, trying to calm himself down. When he feels capable of speaking rationally, he opens his eyes again. "First of all," Desmond says. "I never doubted for a second that you'd be prying into my business. Just don't use _her_ to do it. And second—this has gone far enough. My secrets aren't going to hurt you, so just… let it go."

She laughs at him. "You think I trust you?" she demands. "Because—"

"I haven't done anything to hurt you."

"But you still might," Lucy says. "You know things you shouldn't _possibly_ be able to know, and I can't figure out how. Sometimes I think I should just—"

"Tell Vidic?" Desmond asks. "Drag me back to Abstergo and force me into a coma?"

"Desmond!" she hisses. "You see? This is exactly why I can't trust you. You shouldn't _know_ that."

Desmond has no idea what to do with Lucy. She's too smart, too _sharp_ (and God, those are exactly the reasons he'd liked her so much the first time around), and things are moving too fast. "I'm not going to deal with this right now," he says, ducking around her and heading for the computer. He needs to know if Layla did anything to mess with it.

"You can't just blow me off," Lucy says, trailing after him. "This isn't how this _works_ , Desmond."

Fuck. He can't tell if she did anything or not. Probably she did. Unless maybe she didn't have enough time before he walked in on them? Fuck. "Then how is it supposed to work, Lucy?" He's going to have to email Layla—his Layla—and see if she can tell something. Or actually… maybe there's a better way Layla can help him out? He leans over the keyboard and starts typing.

"God!" Desmond hears Lucy kick something—there's a dull thud of metal, and whatever it is goes spinning out across the floor. "I don't know, Desmond! You're making up a new set of rules as you go along and it's _completely_ in your favor, I—"

He stands up, and there's something… strange and at the same time _overwhelmingly_ familiar surging up inside him. Desmond is so—he's so _done_ with this and so completely lost. They planned for a lot of things, but they didn't plan for Lucy getting so close and figuring out that there's something wrong with him. They should have, because if she decides to tell Abstergo…

But right now, Desmond isn't so much concerned with the planning that they should have _but didn't_ do. He's focused on the feeling of his ancestors rising up in him, joining with him, _mingling_ —

"Not now," he says, and he hears—although he's not entirely sure if Lucy does—his ancestor's voices in chorus with his own. "This will all be over soon, and _then_ I'll tell you."

Lucy backs up a step or two, and he wonders if maybe she _can_ hear them, or if she can hear something, at least, because she looks a little bit worried. "Alright," she says. "Fine." She crosses her arms, in a way that lets Desmond see how she's squeezing her elbows, _nervous_ … "But then you tell me everything, Desmond, do you understand me?"

They stare at her, all three of them. Desmond and Altair and Ezio. There's a thin possibility that if he handles things just right, maybe he can get Lucy on her side. But it's so much more likely that he'll just do it wrong, and she'll run straight to Vidic, and things are going to get much more difficult.

"Yes," they say, and it's a lie. "Everything."

He's not sure if Layla agrees with him, but at least she backs down, retreating to her corner of the sanctuary to lick her wounds or maybe call Vidic, or who even knows. Desmond's ancestor's recede into the back of his mind—he blinks, shakes his head, and sits down to email Layla, feeling vaguely unhappy.

 _From: Desmond Miles_

 _To: Test Account_

 _Date: September 19, 2012 3:39 PM_

 _Subject: [High Priority] Emergency_

 _Lucy brought some help back to get into my emails, and I don't know what else. So of course, she got the one person in the world that could possibly crack all the security you put into my account. Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you're vain enough to know who that is. And why you're the only one that can talk some sense into her. Probably. I don't know. Sorry for how cryptic this is, but I don't want to use names or anything, in case she's watching the account. But she's out there somewhere, I have no idea where, and I have no idea where she would have gone. But you'd have an idea, right? I hope? Sorry to dump this on you, but please stop her from doing anything drastic._

-/-

As soon as Layla reads the email, she knows what Desmond's getting at. And more importantly, she knows where her past self is most likely to go.

When she'd taken _her_ leave of absence from Abstergo, she'd gone back to Egypt to visit family—from what she's heard, she hadn't been that far from William Miles when he'd been captured in a museum there.

She finds Bayek, explains what's going on, and leaves. It's—she always forgets how _long_ the flight is—plenty of time to worry about what she's going to say when she meets up with her past self. No one else has really done that yet, and she's just… worried about what that's going to do to her timeline.

On the other hand, at least she knows what had gotten her feeling so weirdly disconnected from herself over the past few days. Lucy Stillman had decided to meddle with Layla's past, _changing_ things. That's just… that's just plain creepy. It makes her skin crawl, and at the same time, it makes her feel… sad. She's not the _real_ Layla anymore, in a way. The past belongs to that other Layla now, because Lucy had walked into her life and _changed_ her.

By the time she finally gets off the plane and is heading for her past self, Layla is feeling very calm, and very sad, and she knows what she's going to say. She heads for the house where she'd stayed when _she_ was here, sulking about being passed over for promotion to the animus project (again and again), and stops on the street a block or so away. She shades her eyes, peering up, and—yes. There she is. Up on the balcony, prodding ill naturedly at a laptop screen and ignoring the rest of her surroundings.

Had she really been that completely unaware of what was going on around her? Ever since the animus, awareness of her surroundings has just been _ingrained_ in Layla. She can't help looking around whenever she enters a room, checking for exits, for threats, for anything she might need to use.

Anything she can climb.

She pulls her hood up before scaling the side of the building next to her, not to help her blend in—there's no one out on the streets in this neighborhood, not at this time of day—but because it just feels right. She hasn't gotten to practice her climbing much since they got to the warehouse, and it feels nice to stretch her muscles now. Once she's gotten up the side of the building, it's a simple matter to climb from one building to the next, and then to drop down in front of the other Layla.

It takes the younger her an embarrassing fifteen seconds to realize she's not alone anymore, and then the look on her face when she looks up at Layla is pretty satisfying.

Layla pushes her hood down as the other Layla curses and scrambles backward, gradually lapsing into half formed sounds instead of words as her brain short circuits in the face of this clear impossibility.

She should probably feel bad about scaring herself like this.

"Hey," she says. "Calm down, okay? I'm not going to hurt you."

The other Layla makes a face, but seems momentarily distracted from her panic. "Is that seriously what my voice sounds like?" she demands, and Layla has to admit she has a point because that sounds _weird_ , hearing her own voice from the outside.

"Yea," she says, gathering herself, trying to regain control of the conversation. "But that's not the point. I'm here with a message."

"A message?" her younger self asks. She pauses, thinking the situation over, looking at who she's going to be in another five years. "From the future?"

"Yea," Layla says.

"So I'm going to be you in like another ten years?"

Layla bristles. " _Five_ years," she says. "And not exactly. It's—look, it's a long story. Do you want to hear my message or not?" She doesn't wait for an answer, because she _knows_ herself, and she knows she'll argue for hours just on principal, no matter what the circumstances are. So she just takes a few steps closer, until the two versions of her are less than a foot apart.

"You need to stay away from what's going on in Italy," she says gently. "Trust me, I _completely_ understand how you're feeling right now."

"Yea," says the younger Layla. "I can kind of see how you would."

"I know you want to dive right in and get your fingers in everything and figure out what's going on but you _can't_."

There's a long silence, in which she can see the face of her younger self twist, first in distaste, and then in a poor attempt at hiding it. Then at last she says, "I can't… _yet_?"

"Exactly," Layla says. She's not entirely sure if time has been changed badly enough that this Layla won't get her chance to eventually go into the animus and meet Bayek, but she's going to do everything she can to make sure that part of the timeline stays intact. It's important. "So promise me you won't go running back into this, alright? _Promise_."

And after a long promise, the other Layla says, "I promise."

So at least that's one problem taken care of.

 **-/-**

 **Big thank you to anyone that was willing to be patient with me until I could update this again. I was struggling a little big with how this chapter should go (and to be honest I'm still not _100%_ happy with it, but I think I've reached the point where further messing around is only going to make it worse). So I took some time out to not only plan this chapter, but also the rest of the fic. So a few things to note, based on that:**

 **\- There will (probably) be 34 chapters, although I can't guarantee that I won't get sidetracked on a tangent or two at some point and draw it out**

 **\- Up until now, I've been trying to write ~500 words a day, and post each chapter when it's about 1500 to 2000 words, meaning I was updating about every 3 to 4 days. Now that I have things plotted out, I may end up with slightly longer but also slightly slower chapters, I don't know, we'll see**

 **\- There might possibly be a sequel? I don't know, I could see it going either way. As we get closer to the end, I'd love to hear feedback from you guys about whether you'd want to read more**

 **Sorry that got so long, but I guess I had a lot to say today! Anyway, it's lovely to be back, thanks for reading. :)**


	27. Chapter 27

Berg very rarely gets stuck watching other people go through their ancestors' memories in the animus. He's not exactly a tech, although he _can_ operate all the necessary machinery if it comes right down to it. Like today.

A half dozen of the techs had decided to sneak out in the middle of the night and stay out drinking in the closest bar. He couldn't exactly blame them for going a little stir crazy, not when they'd been stuck in the warehouse and the surrounding neighborhood for so long, but he disapproves of it anyway. Five of the six had been Assassins, and therefore a lost cause in any case. But the sixth is a Templar, and Berg had made his displeasure perfectly clear to her when she stumbled in with her new friends at half past six in the morning, looking not _nearly_ hungover enough for Berg's taste. She's on the other side of the room now, nursing a cup of tea as she does her assigned work, while the Assassins (in typically undisciplined fashion) are sleeping it off upstairs.

Leaving Berg and a few others to cover for them. It's dull work, mostly. Monitor vital signs. Watch the memory feed. Pray for the clock to go faster, for the next shift to come to relieve him.

Berg's charge today is a young Assassin boy—a teenager, really, but as far as Berg's concerned, he's still a child. Javier. Not _technically_ an Assassin yet, but definitely well on his way, and moving closer with every day he spends here, surrounded by other Assassins. It's a little bit of a waste, really, Berg reflects as he watches the monitoring screen of the boy's ancestors. The descendant of Shay Cormac would have made an _excellent_ Templar.

Sadly, it's not to be. Javier is just at the right age to cling onto whatever stubborn idea he gets into his head, and now that he's decided he's going to be an Assassin, Berg doubts that he's going to be able to change his mind for at least the next several years—not until he's out of his teenage years.

"You look miserable," Bayek observes, dropping into the seat next to Berg.

"His assigned technician should have been here today," Berg says. "I have more important things to do than sit here and watch this."

"You're not interested in the animus?" Berg asks.

"I've seen all his ancestor's memories before," Berg says. "A few years back we got almost his entire life recorded and stored away at Abstergo."

"Alright," Berg says. "So tell me about him." He shrugs. "I'm curious.

"I'll trade you," Berg offers, because he's not in the habit of giving something away and getting nothing in return. "You have your question about Cormac, I have a question about your Hidden Ones."

"Oh?" Bayek asks, leaning back and crossing his arms. "What kind of question?"

"What exactly was it that you stood for?" Berg asks.

Bayek's mouth works for a second, and he's clearly thinking it over. "I could talk for hours and not completely explain what we stood for."

"I appreciate that," Berg says, deadpan. "I've never understood the point of the Assassin's _nothing is true, everything is permitted_. Any creed that can be summed up in six words is clearly too simple to build a life around."

"I haven't thought about it much," Bayek says. "I've been fairly distracted since I came here. But the Hidden Ones—if I had to sum it up, I'd say we're fighting for protection from anyone that wants to take what they shouldn't. Our free will. Our homes. Our families."

"When you say it," Berg says (and the honesty slips out of him without being entirely intentional). "It doesn't sound like such a bad thing. With the Assassins—oh, I know they say they're fighting for free will, but history has shown that what they're really fighting for is chaos."

"Hmm," Bayek says, a noncommittal sound that Berg accepts with a nod.

"But your group wasn't weighed down by the same history of poor decisions," Berg continues. "And I've been thinking that our group here really needs a name." He looks down at Javier instead of at Bayek. "If it's acceptable to you, the Hidden Ones seems like a fair compromise. Since we're fighting to stop Juno from taking everything we ever had from us, it only seems right."

"And your Templars will agree with that?" Bayek asks.

"They'll do what I tell them," Berg says. "And what we need right now is unity."

"Then yes," Bayek says. "Of course we can use that name." He gestures toward Javier, and to Shay on the screen. "Now, my question. Tell me about him."

"I don't know anything about the boy," Berg says. "Not much, anyway. He's an Assassin, and he's too young to be here." Only a few years older than Elina and Khemu. "But the Templar was a good man. He joined the Assassins when he was too young to know any better, but unlike many Assassins, he saw the error of his ways before it was too late. He switched sides, became a Templar, and spent the rest of his life atoning for what he'd done."

"That's a difficult decision to make," Bayek says. "To turn your back on your cause like that."

"The most important decisions are always difficult," Berg says. "Which is why we have to make sure the right people are making them."

"The Templars, you mean?" Bayek asks. He doesn't sound like he's trying to start an argument, so Berg doesn't push it. He's not particularly interested in winning Bayek to his side. He can see perfectly well that Berg would not _fit_ with the Templars.

He's having a hard time deciding how he feels about the idea that when all this is over, assuming they all survive, they won't be on the same side anymore.

Javier gasps suddenly, jerking violently on the animus.

Bayek leans over at once, putting a hand on Javier's chest to keep him from bucking and hurting himself, then puts his other hand on his arm to soothe him. Berg, on the other hand, leans sideways around Bayek to get a good look at the screen. "Shit," he says, and Berg dimly registers that this might be the first time he's ever heard Bayek curse.

"Pull him out, Berg," Bayek says. His voice is urgent, but Berg ignores him. His eyes are glued to the screen, where a familiar memory is playing out. He's watched it half a dozen times—the underground precursor temple with the artifact that had changed everything. It had levelled Lisbon, and sent Cormac on his way to his true path as a Templar. Only this time, things are different. Juno is there too, and although the picture isn't quite clear enough to see the details of what's going on, but they're clearly together, talking.

"Pull him out!" Bayek says, again, and this time he actually reaches past Berg to the computer. Berg tears his eyes away from the screen and slaps at Bayek's hand. He turns then and starts the sequence to pull Javier out of the animus, because he knows Bayek's going to keep trying until he either manages to yank Javier, or he just breaks the animus. The latter option is far more likely, given Bayek's complete lack of experience with computers, and on a practical level they just cant afford that right now.

He doesn't give Javier the usual transitional phase between his ancestor's memories and the moment when he wakes up. They don't have time for that, and the sooner they get Javier out, the sooner they can get him back _in_ , and figure out what Juno's doing there.

"I have to go back," Javier says at once, and Berg gives Bayek a pointed _see, what did I tell you_ look.

"Not yet," Bayek says, then looks at Berg.

"You need me to translate for you," Berg says. "Because I have a translator and he doesn't."

"Yes," Bayek says.

"I'd rather just send him right back in," Berg says. "Did you see what his ancestor was doing? Juno was _right there_." And she's going to mess it up somehow, isn't she? She's going to turn Cormac away from his path to the Templars and ruin all the great things he should have done.

"It's a memory, Berg," Bayek says. "It doesn't matter if he sees it now, or in an hour, or in a week. So far, Desmond's the only one that's had to deal with Juno interfering with his ancestors. And he's a fully grown man with experience dealing with the precursors before. At least as much as anyone else has. This is a boy."

He's not going to give in, Berg can tell. It's that damned parental instinct of his—Berg is a father too, but his need to protect and comfort only stretches as far as Elina. Maybe it's different because Bayek has had to hold his son's body, has had to bury Khemu, and then live with the consequences. But he seems to be under the impression that any infant, child, or teenager within a fifty mile radius is his responsibility to protect, and he's not going to let them continue until he's satisfied that Javier is going to be just fine.

"Here," Berg says gruffly, pulling his translator out of his ear and handing it to Javier. "He needs to talk to you."

"Uh…" The boy takes the translator, but stares at it instead of putting it into his ear. "Do you think I could wash it first?"

Berg sighs, and leaves the two of them to it. "Make sure you alert me before you go back in," he says. "I mean it."

-/-

"Are you alright?" Bayek asks Javier, as soon as he's seen him put the translator in. "You were spasming."

"I… don't remember that," Javier says, visibly choosing his words carefully. He still looks like he's slightly in shock. "I knew it was possible I'd run into her, but when Shay turned around and she was just standing there, I—I mean, I almost desynched, it freaked me out so much."

He looks so embarrassed as he says this that Bayek leans forward and pats him on the shoulder. "Anyone would have felt the same," he says. "What was she doing there?"

"I don't know," Javier admits. "Going after the same artifact Achilles sent Shay to get, I guess. But I kind of stalled the memory when I saw her, I couldn't focus enough to make it keep going. And then you guys pulled me out."

"You looked like you needed it," Bayek says, and if he's honest with himself, he doesn't care if Javier will admit it or not. He's still just a child, and Bayek isn't going to watch him go into this memory unprepared.

"I don't know," Javier says. "I think I could have handled it."

Because of course he's just at the age where he thinks he's indestructible. Bayek knows he isn't.

"But there's no time," Javier says. "If I don't go back, then we're going to miss whatever she's trying to do.

"No you're not," Bayek says. "Because whatever happened, it's _already_ happened. It happened hundreds of years ago. All you're doing is _watching_ , and taking a few minutes to figure things out before you continue watching isn't going to make any difference to your ancestor or to Juno."

Javier looks up at him. "I'm… not afraid of her," he says.

But Bayek thinks by the look in his eyes that he is. Or that he's worried at least. He half wants to say something reassuring, but honestly… it might be better if Javier learns to feel cautious of what Juno can do. So instead he lets the moment pass.

"The artifact you said you think she's looking for," he says. "What is it, another apple?"

"No-o," Javier says, pulling the word out. "I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"It didn't look like one of those apples," Javier says. "I just… don't know what it is."

"Well I'm sure it's the same artifact Shay found the last time you lived through his memories," Bayek says encouragingly. "What was it?"

"I… never actually went into Shay's memories before," Javier admitted. "I went into his grandson's memories, and a few other ancestors that are… I mean, they didn't live anywhere near this part of history. But no, I never went into Shay's memories."

But that means that they won't be able to tell what Juno's changing in the past. It's going to make it that much more difficult to figure out what Juno's planning here, specifically.

"Why are you in Shay's memories at all, then?" Bayek asks. "Not that it's a bad thing, since we wouldn't have known she was there, but why aren't you in the grandson's memories?"

"Berg insisted," Javier says.

"He's an important man, and I do not want Juno interfering with his life," Berg says, coming back just in time to, apparently, overhear Javier's comment.

"But I've never been in his memories before," Javier says. "I don't know what to look for."

"The piece of eden is obviously the most important thing to worry about," Berg says. "Which of course is why Juno would have gone there first."

"What's this one do?" Javier asks.

"No one really knows what it's supposed to do," Berg says. "Before Juno came and disrupted the memory, Cormac picked up the artifact and it caused an earthquake that levelled the city of Lisbon. And the artifact itself dissolved."

"So it doesn't matter if I've seen his memories before," Javier says. "Does it? I need to go back in there, figure out what the artifact is, and what Juno's trying to do with it."

"Good."

"But—" Bayek isn't sure Javier is ready to go back in. He's worried about what's going to happen to Javier if Juno takes control of Shay, but… Javier seems willing. And they don't have anyone else that can find out what Juno did to Shay. He knows there are animi that can let people see memories that belong to people other than their ancestors, Layla's told him about them, but they don't have any of those machines here.

So he watches as Berg sets Javier back up in the animus, and a few minutes later they're watching the memory start up again.

"What do we do if Juno finds a way to hurt him?" Bayek asks.

Berg shoots him an annoyed look, then reaches over to take the translator back from Javier. When he has it back in his ear, Bayek repeats the question.

"Then we'll find a way to fix it," Berg says. "We have you and Layla that can travel through time, and…" He trails off, thinking. "And Desmond's a possibility."

"Desmond's not here," Bayek points out. "And his ancestor's not _there_."

"No," Berg says. "But one of his ancestors was the colonial grandmaster while Cormac was entering the Templars. We could get Desmond in through him."

That does make Bayek feel a little bit better. After all, Desmond's faced Juno a few times now, and been just fine. "I'll ask Layla to email him," he says, standing.

"And I'll stay and watch the memory," Berg says. As if there was any chance he was going to leave while the memory was still going on.

-/-

Layla's just gotten back from meeting herself when Bayek intercepts her. It takes him very little time to get her caught up on everything that's happened, with Javier's ancestor, and the memory with the piece of eden, and then Desmond's tenuous connection to what's going on.

"Of course I'll let him know what's going on," Layla says. "No one should have to face Juno alone." Least of all some kid. "And Desmond should be able to help." She's exhausted from two flights in quick succession, and the emotional challenge of talking her past self out of doing something she knows she really wants to do. "Can I see the memory first? I don't want to email Desmond and panic him before we have all the details."

"Of course," Bayek says. "Berg's running Javier through it now."

He takes her to Javier's animus, and Layla pulls up a third chair so all of them can watch what's going on. Javier must have had to start over on the memory, because when Layla sits down he's just getting to the part where Juno comes in. Shay's too focused on the artifact to notice her at first, and Layla finds herself mentally urging him to turn around. Not that she's expecting it to help at all, but it's just—it's so painful to have to sit there and watch Juno sneak up on him. He has no idea what's coming for him.

"Is there sound on this?" she asks Berg.

He shoots her a slightly annoyed look (for _daring_ to interrupt, probably). But then he reaches over and turns the volume up. Layla still had to lean over to hear it clearly, but at least she could catch what Shay and Juno were saying when he finally turns around and spotted her.

The first words that come out of the tinny computer speakers are a series of startled curses as Shay takes in the sight of Juno standing behind him.

"Didn't even see you there," he says, when he'd finished. "You—"

"Quiet," Juno breathes, and even though she's several centuries in the future and a continent away, Layla feels her breath catch at the sheer malevolence in her tone.

"Look at that," Bayek says, leaning forward so that his shoulders brushed against Layla's. It's oddly comforting, actually. Layla is never going to get over how terrifying Juno is, and she thinks Bayek knows that. Maybe that's why he presses so close. "Look at her eyes."

Layla swallows. "She looks _pissed_ ," she says.

"We've stopped her twice already," Berg points out. "Maybe it's starting to take a toll."

"I like the idea that we can tire her out," Bayek says. He sounds a little too thoughtful and not _nearly_ scared enough, in Layla's opinion. "But I don't like that it's making her angry."

"Angry people are stupid," Berg says dismissively. "This is good news. She's going to start making mistakes. Now be quiet. If we're going to have the volume up, I want to be able to hear what they say."

So all three go quiet, and watch Shay onscreen as he spreads his hands in a conciliatory motion. "There's no reason to get upset," he says, and his voice makes him sound almost like he's talking to a child. Layla winces. She's not going to like that, is she? "Everything's fine."

"Look at that," Berg says, keeping his voice low enough that he won't have to risk missing anything they're saying. "Look—he's going to get out of this." His fingers trace lines over the screen, and Layla realizes Shay's eyes are darting from side to side, evaluating the situation and Juno herself.

"Not if she gets close enough to use the apple," Layla says.

"He will," Berg says. "He has to."

If Layla hadn't known any better, she might have thought Shay was Berg's ancestor, not Javier's.

"You don't even know what you have there," says Juno in the memory. "Move out of the way, or you're going to regret it."

"Is that a threat?" Shay asks, and Layla sees his eyebrows go up.

"It is a fact," Juno says, her voice and her face tight. "I am tired of being pushed aside, and you and your _damn_ Brotherhood is always, always in my way!"

Her voice rises up in genuine anger there, and Bayek asks, "Are you okay, Layla?" before he can stop himself. He knows Layla can't appreciate being the only one of them that can't hide how genuinely terrified she is of Juno.

"I'm fine," she says. "But Shay might not be."

"Should we pull Javier out again?" Bayek asks, more in Berg's direction than Layla's. Maybe talk to him, figure out something he can do that would _help_ him—"

"What are we supposed to do?" Berg asks. "From what Desmond says, he could only interact with his ancestors because of how he almost died at the Temple. Unless you're suggesting putting Javier through that—"

"I'm not."

"So I guess we'll have to watch and see what happens."

What happens next is that Juno darts with superhuman speed toward Shay. Bayek tenses, and feels Berg and Layla doing the same thing on either side of him. Then she's past Shay, reaching not for him but for the artifact, and she does—something. Shay doesn't quite turn quickly enough for Bayek to see what it is, but whatever it is it allows Juno to pick up the artifact without anything consequences.

"This isn't what would have happened if Juno wasn't here," Berg tells them. "When Shay picks it up, the artifact dissolves and Lisbon is destroyed."

"I mean, her people made it," Layla points out. "If anyone would know how to handle it, she wo— _holy shit_."

The sudden outburst attracts the attention of several other people around them, not that Layla seems to notice. She points at the screen, and Bayek watches in surprise as everything else in the room, Shay included, is thrown suddenly upward, so quickly that it almost seems like gravity has just reversed itself. Only Juno is unaffected, standing in the middle of the now empty floor, artifact held aloft, a kind of grim satisfaction on her face.

"It's not much," she says. "But it's something."

She gestures with the artifact and everything falls again—Shay hits the ground with a heavy _thud,_ and Bayek watches for several long seconds until he sees the man move again.

Juno is walking out of the room, clearly convinced that the encounter is over. There's a cocky sort of spring in her step, and it makes Bayek angry just seeing it. Sure, an artifact like this isn't as dangerous as the apple. Controlling someone's mind has to be worse than this, but still… it's going to make fighting her difficult. If she can just throw people around however they want, it's going to be basically impossible to get this new artifact away from her.

Only apparently, no one's told Shay that.

Slowly, so slowly that at first Bayek thinks he's imagining it, Shay forces himself to his feet. He's obviously in quite a lot of pain, as he forces himself to follow Juno, and his steps are heavy and slow. Quiet, though. And as he comes up behind her, Juno doesn't notice him until it's too late.

"Got you," Shay breathes, and although she turns just in time to avoid his blade, Shay is still quick enough to grab at the artifact. When _he_ touches it, it dissolves.

And then comes the earthquake. Shay runs. Juno runs too, but in another direction, and they quickly lose track of her. But the artifact is destroyed, exactly the way it had been originally. And Shay's still alive, only a little the worse for the wear.

"He did it," Berg says, leaning back in his chair and breathing a sigh of relief. There's a smile on his face, a big stupid smile. "I can't believe he made it out of there."

"It's not over yet," Bayek says grimly. "He got that artifact away from Juno, and she's not going to forget that."

"And," Layla adds. "We can't use Javier to communicate with Shay the way we can use Desmond to communicate with _his_ ancestors."

"No," Berg says. "But… Desmond _does_ have ancestors in this time."

A pause as they all process this, and come to the natural conclusion.

"We need him in that ancestor's memories," Bayek says.

Layla's already on her feet and running for her email. "I'll tell him what's going on," she says. "What's the ancestor's name again?"

"Haytham Kenway," Berg calls after her. "And tell him to hurry."

 **-/-**

 **I'm so upset about how long this chapter ended up being. I have a bad habit of starting to ramble when things get long, and then they don't make sense and nobody wins. So please let me know if you have any complaints, and I will do my best to fix them.**


	28. Chapter 28

When Desmond gets the email from Layla, about the kid in his ancestor's memories that needs help, his first gut reaction is that there's nothing he can do. She gives him the dates, and they just don't line up—Haytham would have already helped to conceive Connor by the time he apparently met Shay. Desmond won't have access to those memories.

 _You might_ , Altair says, when he realizes why Desmond is reluctant. _I'm… working on something_.

He won't say anything else, but by now Desmond knows better than to doubt him. So he does what he can to accelerate things. He goes straight to Ezio's memory of hiding the apple, then only a few hours later they're all on their way to the coliseum. He's half expecting Juno to be there waiting for them but she's not, and after that he's able to get them on their way to the Temple. It's probably not _completely_ necessary to go through Haytham's memories in the same place where he'd done it last time, but it just feels right. And anyway, he's still going to have to be there on December 21, because hopefully by then he'll have a way to save the world without releasing Juno.

Yea. He's not feeling too optimistic right now. Mostly he's just tired.

At least he's not in a coma this time around. And Lucy's not dead. And he has support on the outside, and ancestors in his head. So things aren't quite as bad as they could be, not yet anyway.

"Desmond."

They're flying commercial, which normally would have had Desmond worried about being tracked, but Abstergo still knows exactly where they are, and so do the Assassins. And—he grins a little, as he remembers a detail of the last email Layla had sent him—so do the Hidden Ones.

It's not a bad name, really.

"Hey, Lucy," Desmond says. Because there are other people all around them, he keeps his voice down.

"You're acting differently," she says. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

He sighs. "Lucy, listen. I know you've been really frustrated with me lately."

"That's one way of putting it."

"But it's almost over, okay?" One way or another, this is going to end on December the 21st. "And—look, I promise that before all this is over, I'll tell you everything."

"See," Lucy says. "I want to believe you, Desmond, but so far…"

"I've been more honest with you than I have been with Rebecca or Shaun," Desmond says, which is an admission that stings a little bit. After all, Lucy's a Templar and the other two are Assassins—they're supposed to be on his side.

"I just…"

Desmond's tired. He's just… he's tired, and he's ready to be done with lying already. He turns away from Lucy, and she lets him go quiet. She mostly just shoots him annoyed looks and _huffs_ occasionally when she thinks he's not looking. The flight seems to last forever, and Lucy doesn't speak up again until the fasten seatbelts light comes on for their landing.

"You're not an easy person to understand, Desmond."

His arm itches, and Desmond rubs absently at it. Yea, well, that's difficult to argue, the way things are right now.

Luckily the plane lands not long after that, and there's enough to worry about with getting out of the airport, finding their stuff, getting a van, and finding their way to the Temple. Especially because Desmond insists on approaching carefully. He can't quite shake the thought out of his head that Juno had used the place as a trap once before, with his dad and Berg's daughter. She could have picked anywhere or anywhen in the world to hold them hostage, and she'd picked the Temple. What's to say she won't have another trap waiting for them here?

"This is ridiculous," Shaun grumbles, when they eventually make it _close_ to the Temple. They're not actually there yet, because Desmond keeps insisting they move as slowly as possible, and it's obviously driving Shaun crazy. "Desmond, as far as anyone else knows, it's just some old cave."

"No," Rebecca says, her voice much quieter than usual. "Shaun—"

" _What_ , Rebecca?"

"Just shut up for a second and listen."

"Listen to what?"

Rebecca reaches up and back to slap her hand over his face, and the effect is _almost_ funny. It's not, though, because once everyone's still and quiet, Desmond can hear it too.

 _Voices,_ Altair says, unnecessarily.

 _Someone's already here,_ Desmond agrees. Juno? Although the voices here sound friendlier somehow than he'd expect Juno's people to be. "I want to go ahead first and check it out," he says quietly, and slips away before anyone can stop him.

He's maybe halfway there when he hears someone say, "Desmond," and when he turns around he sees Bayek standing nearby, smile twitching on his face as he tries and fails to look serious.

"Bayek," Desmond says, straightening up and laughing in sheer relief. "I figured Juno would have moved in there, if anyone."

Bayek calls out something loud in Egyptian, which makes Desmond wince—a few hours of creeping around has conditioned him to be wary of loud noises. Still, at least if Bayek's comfortable enough to raise his voice, that's probably a pretty good sign that there's no threat around here.

Desmond is still trying to force himself to relax when he hears footsteps heading toward them from the direction of the Temple, and he grins when he sees Layla weaving her way through the trees toward them.

"You made it," she says.

" _Thank_ you," Desmond blurts, before he says anything else. "Layla, I seriously don't know if I'd have made it without your help."

She waves him off, but Desmond thinks she looks tired. Or is that just his imagination? "No big deal," she says. "Except for flying down to Egypt to talk to myself, that was pretty weird."

"Right," Desmond laughs. "Listen, if you ever run into a past version of me that you need to get rid of, let me know. I think I owe you."

"You _definitely_ owe me," Layla says, a familiar smirk creeping onto her face. "But listen, Desmond, we've been pushing all night to get set up out here, the least you can do is come help us finish unpacking."

"Yea," Desmond says. "Sure, only—I think this is going to take a little bit of explanation." He glances over his shoulder, to where he'd left Lucy and the others. He'd promised her an explanation, but he hadn't been planning on giving it to her so soon.

"Right," Layla says. "You still have that Templar with you."

"And Rebecca and Shaun," Desmond says.

"Good thing we left the other one back at the warehouse," Layla says. "We only have a few people out here."

"Why come at all?" Desmond asks, as the three of them start walking back. "Why not just keep emailing?"

"It was kind of a last minute decision," Layla says. "But basically, we're worried about how much good Javier's going to do by himself."

Bayek says something, and Desmond suddenly misses his translator intensely. He'll have to see about getting that back.

"Bayek's sticking up for him," Layla translates. "I think he feels protective." She makes a face at Bayek, then laughs. Then she turns back to Desmond. "But yea. You need to be here for December 21, to stop Juno, and I think we're all hoping it'll help Javier if the two of you are physically in the same place. I don't know. We'll take any advantage we can get, at this point."

She stops as the three of them reach the place where Lucy, Shaun, and Rebecca are still waiting, and looks to Desmond to take point.

How is he supposed to explain this?

"Hey," Desmond starts, more than a little awkward.

"Desmond," Lucy says. "What—" She stares at Layla, seems to waver for a second on whether or not this is the same Layla she'd recruited to help hack Desmond's email, then realizes it's obviously not. "What is _she_ doing here?"

"You know her?" Shaun asks. "Lucy?" He frowns. "Desmond?"

"Uh—" He shoves his fists into the pockets of his hoodie, and decides to just grit his teeth and dive in at the deep end. "Well, is now a bad time to start explaining that I'm part of a group of people that travelled here from the future to stop an insane precursor from mind controlling the world?"

"Oh my God, Desmond," Layla mutters. She raises her voice so the others can hear her. "Listen," she says. "Everything he said is… he's _technically_ right, but that's a terrible way to explain."

"He's generally pretty terrible at explanations, I've noticed," Lucy says. She's still looking at Layla like she's the part of all this that makes the _least_ sense. Of course, the Layla she's familiar with is several years younger and generally a lot more confused, so Desmond can't completely blame her.

"Yea," Layla says, shooting a grin at Desmond. He rolls his eyes, and then follows her as she starts to head back toward the Temple. "Well, to be fair it is pretty hard to explain."

But Desmond can't help noticing that _she_ does a decent job of explaining the basics as they head back. None of them looks entirely convinced, but they're _getting_ there, and when they step into the Temple and see everyone—

"This isn't exactly what I was expecting to see," Shaun says, with the air of someone choosing their words extremely carefully.

"I know," Desmond admits, although he's beaming as he looks around the open space. "Me neither." The first time around, this place had been nothing but a big open space with a few odd computers and sleeping bags set up—they'd been camping out, more than anything else, and constantly under pressure from their time limit and from Juno and just—everything else.

This time, they've made it here earlier. And the place is _full_ of people, of friends and allies that are here to help them. And they already know where the amulet is, so he won't have to worry about spending weeks in Connor's memories to track it down. All they have to worry about is Juno.

"Desmond?"

And… maybe there's one other thing to worry about. As Layla leads Shaun, Rebecca, and Lucy deeper into the Temple, still busy explaining what they've just stumbled into, and Bayek melts away into the rest of the group, Desmond turns to his dad's voice. It is _his_ dad, the one from 2017—older and grayer than the one that's from here and now in 2012. "Dad," he says. "I didn't—I wasn't expecting you here."

"I wanted to come see you," his dad says, and to Desmond's surprise he grips him by the shoulder, and pulls him away from the group. "I think there are some things we need to talk about."

"Like what?" It's hard to know exactly how to act around his dad right now, and Desmond finds himself fidgeting nervously. They've never been exactly close, now that Desmond has actually died, or almost died, depending how he looks at it, he really wants to give them a chance to do better. He's just not sure how.

"Your son," his dad says, and Desmond (who is still not used to the idea of that) feels his stomach flip.

"Elijah," he says.

His dad nods, and looks directly at him. "What you have to realize," he says. "Is that he's _very_ special."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Desmond asks. "Is he—Layla says he's a Sage. Is that what you mean?"

"No," his dad says. "Well, yes, he is that. But he's also—he's impressed me, Desmond." He at least looks apologetic as he says, "You of all people know that I can be… I'm a hard person to impress."

They share a moment of awkwardness. Desmond remembers failing to live up to his father's expectations when he was a kid, and he knows _exactly_ what it means when his dad says he can be hard to impress.

"Don't screw this up," his dad says, voice almost shaking.

"Why?" Desmond asks quietly. "Because I always did when I was a kid?"

"No," his dad says. "Because _I_ screwed it up when you were a kid."

The sentence falls like a bomb into the space between them, but instead of exploding into an argument—the way Desmond half expects it to—it only brings silence. Desmond opens his mouth and closes it several times, trying to think of where to start. They don't talk about this, they just don't and they never have. But there's a reason Desmond had run away from home when he was sixteen, and it hadn't been because he was too friendly with his parents. In the weeks he'd been in the Temple with his dad last time around, they'd more or less settled into a way of working together without ever really talking _to_ each other, or _about_ why Desmond had left. It feels weird to do it now.

"I never set a good example for you," his dad says, when it gets to be obvious for both of them that Desmond doesn't know what to do with this. "Which I should have."

"Yea," Desmond says. There's sort of a lot his dad should have done when Desmond was a kid, back at the Farm. But…

He scrubs at his face with his hand and half turns away, thinking hard. "Listen," he says at last. "I think that… this is a conversation we need to have. Eventually. But right now, honestly—I just want to know about Elijah." He and his dad have had his chance, and he's not sure if they're ever really going to be able to mend all their broken bridges, and even if they do, it's going to take a good long time. But Elijah… There's a chance there, isn't there? He's missed years of his son's life, he has no idea how to be a dad, and it sounds like Elijah is going to be bringing just as much baggage to this relationship as Desmond is.

But right now, he just cares a lot more about meeting Elijah than he cares about trying to fix all the things that have been broken for too long with his dad.

"Can I meet him?" Desmond asks, and then feels stupid for asking. It's not like his dad is some kind of gatekeeper, Desmond can meet his kid if he wants to.

"He's back at the warehouse," his dad says. "We weren't sure if Juno or any of her people were going to be here, and it seemed safer to leave the kids." He reaches into a pocket of his jacket, and pulls out a phone. "I wanted him to have a cell phone for when he left for school," he explains. "The number's already programmed in there."

"Thanks," Desmond says quietly.

"Of course," his dad says, and then heads off, presumably to leave Desmond alone to make his call. He's still turning the phone over in his hands, trying to work up the courage to actually call, when Lucy walks over and plants herself in front of him.

"So I guess you had your reasons for keeping secrets," she says.

"Lucy—I'm sorry, but this just really isn't a good—"

"I mean, I never would have believed you if you'd explained any of this," she goes on, not giving him a chance to interrupt. "I probably would have reported it back to Abstergo and dragged you back to Vidic."

"Well thanks for not doing that," Desmond says, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"I mean, I _never_ would have thought—"

"Lucy, I'd love to talk pretty much any other time, but while I was at Abstergo I found out I had a son." She doesn't look like she's going to interrupt (for once), but he hurries on anyway before she changes her mind. "And this is the first chance I've had to talk to him so would you mind picking this back up _later_?"

"Oh my God," she says. "I didn't know."

"Yea," Desmond mutters. "I have a lot of secrets. But please, Lucy, can you just give me a chance to call in private?"

"Of course," Lucy says. She looks sad and a little small as she turns to leave, then pauses and glances back. "What I guess I was trying to say though is that I'm not going to tell the Templars about this. And…" She gestures at his phone. "Good luck."

When she's gone, Desmond gives the phone a little nervous squeeze, then dials Elijah's number before anyone else can interrupt. It rings three times, four, and then there's a hiss of static as someone picks up.

"Hello?"

The voice is, of course, completely unfamiliar. But Desmond tightens his hold on the phone and almost stops breathing for a second, because there's no doubt at all in his mind that this _is his son_.

"Hi," he says, and then pauses to clear his throat. "I—you don't know me, but my names Desmond. And I… I'm…"

" _Dad_ ," Elijah breathes.

 **-/-**

 **I have been waaaaiting for this :)**


	29. Chapter 29

He's not ready to be a dad. He's not ready to suddenly have a kid that's nine years old and a Sage—not that he has a clear picture of what that means yet—and a _stranger_. And he's not ready to meet him over the phone, instead of face to face.

"Is it better if I don't call you that?" Elijah asks. His voice is soft over the phone, and Desmond jabs his finger into the volume control, pushing it up so he can actually hear his son.

"What?" Desmond manages to ask. His throat is suddenly dry, and his voice sounds like a croak. He swallows.

"I called you Dad," Elijah says. "And you didn't say anything. I wondered if you would rather have me call you something else."

"No," Desmond says. "You can call me whatever you want, whatever you're comfortable with." He takes a deep breath, stopping the flood of words threatening to rush out of him.

There's a brief pause, static crackling over the line, and Desmond wonders what Elijah is thinking or doing on the other end. It's so hard to have this conversation without even being able to see his face. He wonders if his dad has a picture. He should have asked. It's probably too late now.

"Yes Sir," Elijah says at last, and Desmond closes his eyes. How has he already screwed this up? He's not the kind of guy that people look at and see a _sir_.

"You don't have to—"

"Did Grandpa tell you to call?" Elijah asks, and that's a whole new weird thing. Desmond is going to have to get used to. His dad is someone's _grandpa_. And it's one thing to know that, but another thing completely to hear that flat, careful voice say that about Desmond's dad, of all people.

"No," he says, with a trace of desperation so obvious in his voice that Desmond can hear it himself. "You can—it's okay." Please don't do that. Don't start us off on the wrong foot.

There's a long silence that's physically painful to Desmond as he stands there and waits.

"I have a lot of homework," Elijah says, and he sounds so cold that Desmond can't even argue, he can't say anything because he can't fight the lump swelling in her throat.

Then he hangs up, and Desmond chokes out a sob. He doesn't move, just stands there with his hand pressed into a fist against his forehead. All the time he's spent imagining their first conversation, ever since Layla first emailed him that he has a _son_. And now he's managed to completely ruin everything in less than five minutes.

He hears footsteps behind him, and when he turns he sees his dad there, probably to get his phone back. Desmond doesn't hand it over.

"Dad," he chokes, around the tears that are suddenly there. "I ruined it already, he won't even call me _dad_."

And _his_ dad—his critical, impossible to impress dad, reaches out and wraps him in a tight hug. "You haven't ruined it," he says, and Desmond is torn between an intense desire to believe him, and a vague sense of wrongness at the soft, almost tender tone in his voice. "When you meet him, you'll see. Elijah, he's… difficult. And he's had a hard time with life. He knows things he shouldn't, Desmond, he just _knows_ them, and as you might imagine that's gotten him into a lot of trouble in the past. He has a hard time trusting, and a hard time communicating. His mother never knew how to handle him, and so I don't think he knows how to handle family."

"But he has you," Desmond mumbles. "He calls _you_ grandpa…"

His dad gives him a rough pat on the shoulder, and steps away just about the time when the hug would have gotten weird. "He'll call you dad someday," his dad assures him. "He will see that you love him, and to be honest I don't think it's going to take that long. He wants to be convinced, and he _will_ be convinced. And the first time he calls you dad, all this worrying is going to feel stupid." He starts walking back toward where the animi have been set up. "Now come on, unless you think someone else is going to save the world for you this time."

Desmond hesitates, then calls, "Thank you. Dad."

There's an ever so slight hesitation before his dad nods, and then Desmond starts walking after him.

-/-

The kid's name is Javier, and Desmond decides very quickly that he likes him. He's a little nervous, Desmond can tell, but it's hard to blame him. There's something about the Temple that's so alien and inhuman that it's just hard _not_ to be nervous.

"I don't think I ever saw Shay when I was going through Haytham's memories," he says. The two of them are sitting on a small rock, watching the techs fiddle with the last bits of animus setup.

"I have no idea who Haytham is," Javier says. "I haven't been in Shay's memories very long."

"Well apparently they're going to meet soon." _Right, Altair?_

 _Yes,_ his ancestor says. _I have a plan. But first, I think we need to talk about Juno. This is her home, isn't it? This is the place you've told us about?_

 _Yea,_ Desmond says. _I don't know if home would be the right word, but yea._

 _Then I want to try and do what I can to ward us against her, before I do anything else._

 _Like you did for me?_ Ezio cuts in. He's still not there as often as Altair, but he's in and out, and by now he and Altair are both used to it.

 _Yes,_ Altair says. _Although of course it'll be harder, with her being so established here. It might not even work._

 _Still worth trying,_ Ezio says. _I know the only reason I can sleep most nights is that I know she's not coming back here._

"Desmond?" Javier says. "You just sort of—zoned out."

"Yea," Desmond says. "Sorry, I just—I think there's something I need to do before we get into the animus. Give me a second?"

"What are you going to do?"

"It's… kind of a long story," Desmond says carefully, because he doesn't know how to explain all this quickly. "I'll be back in a minute."

But Javier follows him as he goes to get the apple, and then watches as Desmond cups it in his hands, waiting patiently for Altair to reach through him to the apple.

"Is that safe?" Javier asks. "I mean—aren't we all here because we want to stop Juno from using that thing?"

"Yes," Desmond admits, not quite looking at him. "But it's also our only way of warding this place against her and keeping us safe while we're here."

"You can do that?" Javier asks, perking up.

"I really hope so," Desmond mutters. _Are you ready?_

 _Ready,_ Altair says, and Desmond feels a surge or purposeful determination as his ancestor reaches through him, through his apple, and out into the world. It doesn't feel as uncomfortable as it should. Kind of warm, if anything.

 _That's the ward?_ Ezio asks.

 _It would be,_ Altair says slowly. _If there was anything here to ward against._

There's a beat of silence, then Ezio says, _What?_

 _Juno's not here,_ Altair says. _I can set up a ward to keep her from coming back, but I was expecting her to be here already, and she's just not._

 _Oh crap,_ Desmond says, because if she's not here, where they expect to find her, it can only mean she's somewhere else, causing trouble they don't expect.

 _I'm sorry,_ Altair says. _I wish I had more information for you._

Desmond is silent for a while, thinking it over. He's still a little shaken from his conversation with Elijah, and he doesn't want to deal with whatever Juno's planning on top of it. _Well… you said you could ward it against her coming back. Why don't you start with that—_

 _Done._

 _Okay. So you start with that, and then we move on to whatever your idea is that's going to let me see Haytham's memories. Then we can get back to tracking her in the past, at least._

He sort of senses a nod from Altair, and then the apple glows warm again.

 _I don't understand the issue here,_ Ezio says. _Someone explain it to me, please._

 _The issue is that I can only relive memories of my ancestor up to the point when they conceive the next ancestor in line. Which is bad in this case, because my ancestor and Javier's didn't meet until after Haytham had Connor. So I need to find a way to see his memories after the point where they should stop._

 _It's not that difficult,_ Altair says, although his words are slightly undercut by the fact that he sounds strained. _It's not so different from the way we're all connected. In my time, I have already had two sons, and I don't believe I will have any more. That means that whichever of my children is going to be Desmond's ancestor, he already exists._

 _But we're still connected,_ Desmond says, catching on. _Through the apple._

 _Yes we are,_ Altair says. _And so is Ezio. I think—if I'm right—then all I need to do is connect Haytham as well._

 _That'll be fun,_ Desmond says drily. _Haytham in my head. Making comments on everything._ He likes having Altair and Ezio in his head, popping in at odd times, commenting on whatever's going on in his life. Haytham, on the other hand… he's kind of an asshole.

 _Sorry,_ Altair says. _But this is about saving the world, isn't it?_ _It's important enough to put up with small annoyances._ He lapses back into silence, focusing, and Desmond lets him do it until one of the techs calls out to him and Javier that the animus is ready.

He can't help moving slowly, just to give Altair time to do whatever he needs to do to get everything set up with the apple. He's still fiddling and delaying (and Javier is already in _his_ animus, all loaded up and ready), when Altair says, _I think the only thing I still need is a read on Haytham himself. Go through into any memory, and I should be able to connect the two of you._

 _Thanks._ He lies back down on the animus, then hesitates. He hasn't been in one like this before.

"Cool, isn't it?" Rebecca asks. She's the tech in charge of setting him up, which Desmond is grateful for. She still has a flushed, excited expression on her face, the same one she's had since they walked in here and she finally found out about all this. "Your friends brought a couple of them for you and the kid."

"And it's better than yours?" Desmond asks.

Rebecca nods. She looks excited about this, rather than nervous or jealous about the new tech. "They called it a sarcophagus, I think?" She shrugs. "But either way, I've been looking at this thing and I can't wait to try her out." She gives the machine a fond pat. "So go on. Climb in and get ready."

He does as he's told, resisting the urge to cross his arms over his chest and pretend like he's lying in a coffin. There's a reason Layla named this model the _sarcophagus._

Rebecca inserts an IV, just in case, then starts the new animus up.

True to her word, it's amazing. It's like no other animus Desmond has ever been in. There's none of this usual period of almost clunky disconnect on his way into the loading screen, it just happens. One second Desmond is in his own body and mind, and the next he's standing in the white loading screen as Haytham.

 _That always feels weird,_ Desmond mutters. He crosses Haytham's arms over his chest. Taps Haytham's foot. _Are you guys still there? You made it okay?_

 _We can still hear you,_ Ezio reassures him, and Desmond nods.

 _I was worried you wouldn't be able to come through with me,_ Desmond admits. _I don't know. Things just seemed like they're going too smoothly, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop._

The rest of the world builds around them, and Desmond _feels_ and _knows_ as Altair, in his time, in the safety of Masyaf, reaches for his apple. There's a moment, a long, drawn out moment of silence, where Desmond can't do anything but wait for Altair to finish his work.

And then another voice. New. _What—_

Haytham sounds genuinely shocked as his voice echoes through Desmond's mind for the first time.

 _Listen,_ Ezio says, as Altair recovers from linking Desmond to Haytham through the apple. _It's a long story, but we need your help to save the world._

And Haytham does listen. He listens carefully, although with a growing sense of disbelief. He says nothing to Ezio as he gives a cursory explanation, and does not even ask questions until the end. When it's finally over, he says, "So I'm supposed to just trust you?"

 _You don't have to ask questions out loud,_ Desmond says. _But… yes. Please. I know it sounds insane, but what Ezio said about Juno, and the whole world being in danger, it really is true._

This time, there's a slight hesitation, and Haytham's jaw works. Desmond can feel himself sweating with nerves as they wait, and he wonders if it might have been easier to just hide from Haytham. If he hadn't had Javier to worry about, and if they didn't already know that Juno was there…

 _This is extremely inconvenient for me,_ Haytham says at last, just when Desmond is starting to worry he'll never agree to help. _And I hope you realize that._

If Desmond hadn't been stuck in the animus and basically immobile at the moment, he would have rolled his eyes. Judging from the feeling he's getting from Ezio, his ancestor _is_ rolling his. Only Altair abstains.

 _I understand that this is all new to you,_ he says. _But if you need any proof that Juno is as dangerous as we've told you, there is a man that will be coming to you soon._

"And…" He stops, then continues in silence. Clearly, this is going to take some getting used to for him. _And he will be able to corroborate this?_

 _He will have quite the story to tell._

Haytham clearly isn't buying it, and Desmond wishes they could have come at this more gradually. Not only is Haytham the only Templar whose memories he's he ever lived through in the animus, he's by far the most skeptical, and the slowest to trust. If they only had the _time_ …

But they don't.

 _So who are you?_ Haytham asks at last. _Altair, Ezio—these are names I know. Desmond, I assume you are an Assassin as well?_

Desmond hesitates, then says _No._

 _Oh?_ Haytham raises an eyebrow, clearly both disbelieving and unimpressed.

Well, yes. But right now? First and foremost? _I'm a Hidden One._

Haytham considers that. Snorts derisively. Shakes his head. _This is absurd._

 _But you will at least talk to Shay?_ Desmond asks.

 _You have aroused my curiosity,_ Haytham admits. He sounds reluctant, but at this point, Desmond will _take_ it. _And I will speak to him._

 ** _-/-_**

 **I feel like this chapter took foreeeever to write... and I kept falling asleep in the middle, hopefully that doesn't mean it's boring. xD**

 **Getting close to the ending now, though. I wanted to take a second to kind of talk about something I've seen come up a couple times, which is that yes, this fic is going to end after AC3-actually, I don't even know if it's fair to say _after_ 3, because I don't think Connor is going to show up. **

**Originally I wanted this to cover all the games, and then I figured out that actually AC3 is a pretty good stopping point, since that's kind of the end of the Desmond saga in canon. But what I'm thinking about doing is a timeskip/sequel, with Connor, Arno, the Fryes, and Aya coming in part 2. Or, I might just end it with this fic, and not do a sequel. It depends entirely on if anyone is interested in reading more after this fic wraps up. I don't know. Sorry for the rambling, but that's where my thought process is at right now.**


	30. Chapter 30

He doesn't look like much.

For once, as Haytham looks across the crowded tavern at where Shay is waiting alone, Desmond agrees with his ancestor. It's later, a while after his first talk with Haytham—a day and a half for Desmond, several weeks of travel for his ancestor—but this is the first time they've had the chance to see Shay in person.

 _I've heard good things,_ Haytham says. _He has been working with the Templars since whatever really happened in Lisbon. But…_

 _He looks like a half drowned rat,_ Ezio observes, and the comment seems to startle Haytham, at least enough for him to smile for a second.

 _That's not inaccurate,_ he says. But he takes his responsibilities seriously, and this is a man that is being seriously considered for the Templars. Haytham stands, weaves through the crowd, and sits himself back down at Shay's table. Desmond can't help straining forward, studying the other man as if he'll be able to see Javier through him somehow. Stupid, probably, but he can't help himself. Javier is still going through Shay's memories, he's still looking out for Juno the same way Desmond is. But from this perspective, it just looks like Shay alone. It's weird.

 _Nothing is true_ , Altair says, and Desmond smiles reflexively.

 _Don't start that Assassin nonsense,_ Haytham says, and then turns his attention to Shay. "My name," he says. "Is Haytham Kenway."

"I've heard of you," Shay says. He draws himself up, makes a visible effort to look like less like a drowned rat.

"Oh?" Haytham says. "From whom?"

"The Assassins," Shay says. His tone is reluctant. "But I'm not with them now."

"No," Haytham says. "I wouldn't be meeting with you here if you were. I've heard from some of my men that you've been working with them for the past few months. They speak highly of you."

Shay blinks, and says, "Thank you," cautiously. "I couldn't stay with the Assassins. Not after they sent me after that artifact, and that woman."

 _Juno!_ Ezio says.

 _Yes,_ Haytham says drily. _But from what you've told me, you already knew that._ "I'm told that not only do you want to leave the Assassins, but you intend to join the Templars."

"I do," Shay says. "I never thought I would, but… I think the Assassins are looking at artifacts like this all wrong."

Desmond stays quiet. So do Altair and Ezio. As much as the natural instinct is to jump to the defense of the Assassins, he can't imagine that going over well with Haytham.

"Oh?" Haytham makes a tent of his fingers, and peers over them at Shay. "Explain."

"I just… the things she could do with the artifact." And he explains, briefly, looking with every word like the memory is physically painful, what had happened in Lisbon. "The Assassins sent me to Lisbon to recover the artifact and bring it back to them. For all I know, they were going to try and use it."

 _And he's never even seen an apple,_ Ezio says, no longer able to stay quiet. _Imagine if he'd seen Juno trying out her mind control instead of whatever that thing in Lisbon was._

 _He's lucky he didn't,_ Desmond points out. _That thing had something to do with… what, gravity? Based on the way it threw him around the room, and how it triggered that earthquake—_

 _Well, it's not mind control,_ Ezio says grimly.

"And what do you think the Templars want to do with it?" Haytham asks. "Just out of curiosity. What do you think we're going to do with these artifacts once we have them?"

"I don't know, exactly," Shay admits. "But I know that you hate the Assassins. I can't believe that you'd want these artifacts for the same reason. And besides, the people I've been working with, Gist and his friends—they're good people. I think… I've been friends with some of the Assassins for a very long time. Liam, I…" He cuts himself off, and Desmond wonders who this Liam is, and what kind of history he has with Shay. An old friend, maybe. An Assassin, definitely. He feels pity stirring, but Haytham clearly does not.

 _He would be a good fighter,_ he says. _And I think he would serve the Templars loyally—he's left the Assassins and burned his bridges. If nothing else, he has nowhere else to go. But—_

 _Oh come on, Haytham,_ Ezio says. _Look how sad he is._

Haytham's face contorts.

"Sir?" Shay says.

"It's nothing," Haytham says. "I'm just… considering."

 _I don't know how the Assassins usually decide on recruits,_ Haytham says. _But the Templars don't usually admit new members based on whether or not they look like a puppy that's been left out in the rain._

 _We need him,_ Altair says. _He's seen Juno, he may have more information._

"Please," Shay says.

And Haytham gives in. "Alright then," he says. "You've certainly done good work with Gist." He stands, and holds out a hand. Shay stands as well, and shakes it.

"Thank you sir," he says. "You won't regret this."

"I don't think I'm going to be allowed to," Haytham agrees drily. "Now, I do have a few questions for you. About what happened in Lisbon, and specifically to the woman you fought there."

-/-

But discouragingly, Shay doesn't know much. They don't learn anything really _helpful_ , and in the end Desmond and Javier both have to log out of the animi. Desmond isn't overly concerned. They'll find Juno eventually, figure out what she's there for, and how to stop her. And his ancestor and Javier's are working together now, and he thinks that's a pretty big win.

Javier clearly doesn't see things the same way. "I'm not helping very much," he says. "Am I?"

"Of course you are," Desmond says. He doesn't know Javier well, but he recognizes the downtrodden, discouraged expression on the teenager's face. He's felt that way plenty of times himself, and it's taken him a long time to feel actually _useful_.

"But why?" Javier asks. "I mean, what am I actually _doing_ in there? What's Shay doing? The artifact from Lisbon is destroyed, so he doesn't have any helpful information. He doesn't know any more than anyone else, and neither do I."

"He's seen Juno though," Desmond says. "That's something."

"Not much of something."

"Look," Desmond says. "We know she's in that time now. And we know there are other artifacts around—Haytham has one with him now, a key. And I know there's an apple around somewhere. We need to be ready for her when she makes her move, and now that our ancestors are together, we can be."

"I think Shay wants to find her," Javier admits. " Juno, I mean. He hasn't told anyone else about it, but he keeps thinking about her. And he's angry."

Desmond's pretty sure Haytham would be okay with that—they've just about convinced him that Juno's a serious threat, but that only means he'll be more willing to _let_ Shay go after Juno if he volunteers.

"And I'd do it," Javier adds, while Desmond is still thinking about it. "I mean, I wouldn't have much choice. If Shay goes, I'll have to go too, but I guess—I…" He looks at Desmond, almost sheepish—but there's a kind of steel behind it that reminds Desmond that this isn't just some random teenager pulled off the streets. He's going to be an Assassin.

"Good," Desmond says. "Great. But for tonight… just try and get some rest, okay?"

Javier rolls his eyes in a distinctly teenage type of way, but he also grins at Desmond as he heads off to a corner of the temple.

-/-

The next couple days in the animus prove Desmond right about Javier and Shay being able to help. Juno, it quickly becomes obvious, is _enraged_. Maybe she's getting tired of losing, maybe Lisbon was the last straw. She starts to lash out at everyone and everything that gets too close to her. They quickly learn to recognize the signs of where Juno has passed—most noticeably, the people she's pulled in with her mind control. Some of them drop whatever they're doing with their lives to follow her, while others apparently go crazy. But no matter how hard they try to figure out where she's going or how to catch her, they're always a step or two behind.

By the time the weekend comes, they all need a break. Haytham and Shay don't exactly get that option, but for Desmond and Javier, they can at least take a day off from the animus. Javier announces he's going to sleep until noon, but Desmond doesn't have any particular plans.

He gets up early, out of habit, and wanders around a bit, getting in everyone's way. Finally, clearly exasperated, Shaun suggests he go out and wait for his dad to get back.

"What?" Desmond asks. Until that moment, he hasn't even realized his dad's missing. When Shaun points it out, though, he does notice—for the first time since he went into Haytham's memories, his dad isn't in the Temple. Hasn't been there all morning, actually. "Where is he?"

"He left early," Shaun says. "Before dawn. I think he said he had to go get something important."

Desmond has no idea what that might be, but he _does_ know when he's being dismissed, so he shrugs into a coat and heads out to wait for his dad to get back. He's alone today, his ancestors busy elsewhere and elsewhen, so the familiar voices in his head are missing. It's a rare opportunity for Desmond to be completely alone with his thoughts, and for a while that's enough. He finds a comfortable place to sit, and lets his mind wander.

Then come the footsteps. Two sets. Desmond jerks to his feet, expecting trouble—but then he sees his dad's face, and starts to relax. It's only after several seconds that he realizes the second set of footsteps belongs to a boy—scrawny and dark haired, eyes fixed on his shoes—walking at his dad's side.

 _Elijah_.

There's no one else it could possibly be.

"Desmond," his dad says. "This is Elijah. Elijah, this is—"

"Really?" Elijah asks. "That's him?" He doesn't sound very impressed, which doesn't seem fair at all. They don't know anything about each other, they've never even met.

"Yes, Elijah," Desmond's dad says pointedly. He gives him a little look that Desmond recognizes from his own childhood. That's the look that says _you're behaving very badly right now, try and act your age._

Elijah fixes him with a look, then slowly turns to glance at Desmond. There's a little more uncertainty there now. "Sorry," he says.

"Um," Desmond says.

"I'm going to head back into the Temple," William says. "And leave the two of you to talk."

"But—"

It's too late. His dad's gone. Desmond's alone with his son, and he has no idea what to do. He clears his throat and turns back to the boy. "Do you want to come sit over here?" he asks. "And we can—we can talk."

Elijah considers for several seconds. "Okay," he says at last.

They sit.

"He brought me here because he's worried you're going to die again and we'll never have a chance to meet."

"Wait," Desmond says. "What? He told you that?"

"No," Elijah says. "I just know it." His gaze, which so far has been on his feet, on the ground in front of him, on the trees, on anything _other_ than Desmond, suddenly flicks up toward him. "I… just know a lot of things, actually. Because I'm a Sage, I—it's weird. I know it's weird. I know it's—" He breaks off into mumbling, too quiet for Desmond to understand.

He has to do something, obviously, because otherwise this is going to be their whole first meeting, it's just going to be sitting here in the cold, not looking at each other. "So I'm dead," he says, and his voice is like a croak. "It's like you said, I might be dying _again_ in a few weeks, and the only reason I'm alive at all is… I don't even know. I got incredibly lucky. Way luckier than I deserved, but sometimes I still feel like…" He scratches at his arm, the one that's hurt on and off ever since he saved the world and almost died. "I don't deserve this. There's nothing wrong with being complicated or weird or whatever, Elijah."

"Yes there is."

But he looks very slightly less nervous. "I…"

"Yea?" Desmond prompts.

He swallows. "I don't want you to hate me."

There are all kinds of things Desmond could have said to that. He could have argued, or tried to come up with a logical reason he's not going to ever, _ever_ hate Elijah. But the truth is that there's no argument he can think of that seems as true or as real as the way he feels right now. So Desmond reaches a hand out to Elijah and says, "Never."

Elijah looks at the hand, but doesn't take it, not yet. He _does_ look Desmond full in the face for the first time, though, and that's some kind of progress. "I don't think you understand," he says. "I don't think you understand what it would be like to have to live with me."

"I know that you can't possibly be as bad as you think you are," Desmond says. He opens and closes his mouth several times, trying to figure out what to say. It's hard, because he never _imagined_ he'd be in a situation like this. "I'm sorry," he says, when he can't think of anything else to say. "I should have known about you, and I should have been there."

"No," Elijah says. "No, no, no, that's not what I meant, you don't have to be sorry about it, I'm just saying this probably isn't going to be as easy as you want it to be."

He's obviously, visibly trying to talk himself out of being here. Clenching and unclenching his hands, face pale. Desmond's not going to let him do it. "Why don't you stay here?" he asks. "I know it's not the best situation, but I mean if my dad's right about me dying again in December, I want to know you before it happens. I mean it, I swear."

"I can't," Elijah says. "I have school, and homework, and—" He looks up at Desmond, a flash of intense emotion on his face. "And Grandpa's wrong. You're not going to die."

"Yea?" Desmond asks. "Is that something you just know, or…?"

"Not exactly," Elijah says. "It's…" He squeezes his eyes closed, and maybe it's a little easier for him to talk, because the words come a little bit less hesitantly. "I really don't _want_ you to die. I want you to come home and be my d-dad."

That last word he does stumble over, but Desmond's so relieved just to _hear_ it that he doesn't care. "I want that too," he says. "More than anything." And he reaches over cautiously to put his arm around Elijah's shoulder.

"So don't die," Elijah mumbles. "Just don't do it."

"I won't," Desmond says. "I pr—"

"No!" Elijah's eyes fly open, and he looks Desmond full in the face. "Don't promise when you can't control it. If you promise you won't die, and then you _do_ , it's going to be so much worse."

That's a fair complaint. Desmond nods. "Then I won't promise anything. But I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make it home for you."

Elijah's face quirks into something that might, in kinder circumstances, have been a smile. "I don't think I have a home," he says. "I don't think I could go back to Mom. And I've just been in the warehouse base since then."

"I don't really have a home either," Desmond says. The sad thing is, the closest he's ever come to feeling like he has a home is in the animus, reliving his ancestors' ideas of home. "But I think, if you wanted to, we could make one together."

It's a little bit of a gamble, for this boy he's never met, who's absolutely terrified of him. It might be too much too soon, but if things go bad, it might be the one and only chance they ever have to talk.

Elijah freezes. For a very long time, he doesn't say anything, he doesn't move, he barely even blinks. Then he sucks in a tiny breath, and says, "I think I would like that more than anything I ever thought of before."

Desmond laughs, and Elijah cracks a grin. "Do you want to come into the Temple for a while?" he asks. "Get warm, maybe a little bit of food?"

"No," Elijah says. From where they're sitting, they can't actually see the Temple, and Desmond is pretty sure Elijah hasn't been that way and seen it yet. Still, when he looks over his shoulder, even though all he's seeing are the trees between them and the cave, Elijah is staring exactly in the direction of the Temple. "I don't want to go in there. I don't like the way it feels."

"The way it feels?"

"I told you I just know things," Elijah says. "This place… I'm so _positive_ that this place is bad, it just feels like this whole…" Whatever feelings or knowledge he has are apparently too big for him to put into words, because he resorts to gesturing helplessly. "This whole bit _thing_. It's a bad place and I don't want to go there. I think it would feel very bad."

"Oh," Desmond says.

"See?" Elijah says. "I told you I'm weird."

Desmond scoffs and tightens his hold on his son. "It's fine," he says. "We'll just stay out here. I have a while before I have to go back, probably. We have time."

So they settle in for a nice long talk, which doesn't end until the sun dips below the horizon, and William comes to pick up Elijah and take him away. When Desmond heads back to the Temple, he's alone—but for the first time, he genuinely has something to look forward to when all this is over.

-/-

Lucy is out late, long after Desmond comes back in for the night. She's been feeling out of place lately, now that she doesn't really have anything to do, and it's depressingly easy to just creep out of the cave without anyone noticing she's leaving. She considers reporting in to Abstergo, but doesn't. This feels so far beyond the fight between Assassins and Templars that dragging Vidic and his underlings into it seems inappropriate, somehow.

So she just goes off wandering, until the temple is out of sight, and she can pretend that the whole stupidly complicated thing is almost possible to _forget_ for a second. She finds a broad tree and leans against it with her arms crossed over her chest, shivering a little in the early winter air. It's a weird and bitter change to suddenly feel so superfluous, and Lucy allows herself a few minutes just to feel sorry for herself. It's possible she would have stayed there longer, would have kept sulking for an embarrassing amount of time, except that someone interrupts her.

The only warning she has that someone's coming are some (surprisingly light) footsteps, but by the time she's opened her eyes there's a hand on her forehead, and a voice so brittle and brightly angry it makes Lucy shiver involuntarily.

"Juno," she gasps, voice high and scared (and she's glad there's no one around to hear, even as she wishes desperately that someone would come).

"Be quiet," Juno hisses, and Lucy's voice dies in here throat. "Don't run. Don't fight." Her muscles go slack. "You're not much, but you're something. And I am _tired_ of losing. Now follow me." She pulls her hand off Lucy, turns and starts walking. She doesn't wait to see if Lucy's going to follow her, because there's no choice about that. As Juno walks into the woods, Lucy is right behind her.

 **-/-**

 **I'm really sorry to the person that's been hoping for more Lucy-I'm pretty sure this isn't what you wanted to see.**

 **Also, I don't think I mentioned this before(?), but I probably should have for anyone that doesn't know: Javier, Shay's descendant in this fic, is a character from the Last Descendants young adult novels. They're not perfect, but they're interesting if you're an AC fan.**


	31. Chapter 31

Lucy is sitting on a fallen tree, perfectly still, because she's been told to, and when Juno tells her to do something she doesn't have any option _but_ to obey. She's been sitting here for what feels like hours now—Juno had left a little while ago, leaving Lucy the useless, frozen statue behind.

It's dawn now, and Lucy can finally hear Juno's footsteps coming back. On the one hand, by this point Lucy is desperate to be allowed to move again, but on the other hand, she can only imagine what Juno's going to do with her now.

She's half expecting it when Juno comes close, reaches out, and touches her. For whatever reason, her mind control doesn't seem to work unless she can make physical contact with Lucy. It adds an oddly… personal feeling to the already horrible ordeal.

Time stretches out, and Lucy's skin crawls with the anticipation of something terrible happening. Then Juno begins to speak, a slow, quiet mantra. Her tone is perfectly flat, and barely loud enough for Lucy to hear.

"You are mine," Juno says, and Lucy knows it's all over. Whatever's going to happen next, it's going to destroy her. "You are my creature, and you will serve me. You will serve me willingly. You will serve me gladly, because you will desire nothing other than my satisfaction."

She pulls her fingers away, and Lucy's forehead feels suddenly cold without them there. It feels like things are shifting inside her head, the building blocks of her personality rearranging into what Juno wants her to be. She _knows_ that she's only changing because Juno told her to change, but that shifts from being horrifying to being only right so quickly that Lucy barely notices.

It's odd, really. She still doesn't like Juno—in fact, she's still terrified of her. It's just that it's suddenly inconceivable to put her own wants or needs above what Juno wants from her.

With a gesture from Juno, Lucy finds herself suddenly able to move again. So of course, she does the only thing that feels natural at the moment, sliding off the fallen tree and going down on her knees in front of Juno.

"Excellent," Juno says. "Now listen closely. I'll be leaving this century soon, and I have plans for you."

And so Lucy listens.

-/-

"Sir," Shay says. "I think she's back."

Haytham is in his unofficial office over the Green Dragon Tavern when Shay comes looking for him. He doesn't have to question who Shay's talking about, because there's only one possible answer. They've been hunting Juno for months by now, and over the past week or so the near constant reports of people being corrupted by her have dried up completely.

"She's controlling people again?" Haytham asks, putting down the book he's been poring over.

Shay nods. "And what does your…" He gestures to his own head, in a motion that Haytham recognizes by now as meaning Desmond (and _only_ Desmond—so far, Haytham has been too vaguely embarrassed to admit to the other Assassins he's been saddled with). "What does what's his name think of that?"

 _Probably she was busy causing trouble somewhere else,_ Desmond says. He sounds exhausted. _But now she's back, so at least that's something._

"He sounds discouraged," Haytham relays.

"Okay," Shay says. "Sure." And then he moves the conversation on, because as far as Haytham can tell, he doesn't entirely believe that a man from the future is giving Haytham advice. Never mind that, according to Desmond, Shay has an observer of his own. Desmond has _tried_ to explain how Altair had connected them all, but Haytham is still trying to wrap his head around the whole process. He doesn't know why it applies to him but not to Shay and his eventual descendant.

"So where is she now?" Haytham asks, changing the subject.

"Close," Shay says. "New York."

Their best chance to get to her so far. "Alright," Haytham says. "Then we travel to New York."

"And once we're there?" Shay asks. "Sir?"

 _I can ward this time against her,_ Altair says. _I did it for Ezio. But it will be much easier if she's physically nearby._

 _Much more satisfying too, I imagine_ , Haytham says drily. Despite never having seen Juno before himself, his dreams are more and more often full of a laughing woman, larger than life, who he can only assume is Juno. Desmond's memories bleeding into his sleeping hours. He would very much like to see that smirk rubbed off her face.

 _Mmm,_ Altair says, and there's a brief pause as both men realize that they've accidentally agreed with one another.

"I'll explain while we travel," Haytham says, to cover the awkward pause.

-/-

The rest of the day in the animus is spent following Haytham and Shay as they travel, and they're just getting to New York when Lucy pulls him out of the animus.

"What?" Javier complains from the other animus. "Now?"

"It's been six hours," Lucy says, but her eyes are oddly distant as she doesn't quite meet his gaze. "You don't want to be in there all night, do you?"

"Guess not," Javier mutters, as he stretches and swings his legs over the side of the animus. He heads off, but Desmond stays where he is.

"You okay, Lucy?" he asks. "You seemed off this morning." And she still seems off now, come to think of it, but he doesn't mention that. This has to be a pretty big adjustment for her, and maybe this just isn't a situation she's comfortable in.

"Fine," she says, and doesn't look it at all. Doesn't look at him at all, either.

"Lucy." He does stand up now, and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Seriously. I know I've kind of been ignoring you…" Although to be fair, they hadn't exactly been on friendly terms before coming here. He just feels _bad,_ looking at her now. Like she's not even really there, like her mind is just somewhere else. "Do you want to talk about it, or anything?"

"No," Lucy says.

She's much less talkative than usual, and Desmond is… worried. For the moment, all thoughts of Haytham and Juno are driven straight out of his head—he frowns at Lucy and wracks he memory, trying to figure out what could be wrong. "You went out somewhere last night, right?" he asks. He'd noticed her coming back in, but doesn't remember seeing her leave.

"Desmond." She looks tired, almost exasperated. "This really isn't important right now, okay?"

"Then what is?" Desmond asks, totally confused.

"Later," Lucy says. "It's not time yet." And she starts walking away from him, like that's a perfectly normal way to end a conversation.

"Not time for _what_?" Desmond asks.

"I guess it's my turn for secrets," Lucy says. "You had some pretty big ones, I think you can let me have one now."

And then she's gone, and Desmond is left alone by his animus station watching her retreating back. "Yea I guess," he mutters. But he doesn't feel very good about it.

-/-

They find Juno eventually. To Desmond and Javier, watching through the lens of the animi, it's only a few hours after they log on the next morning—to Haytham and Shay, stuck living through their own lives in real time, it takes half a month of following increasingly strange rumors through the streets of eighteenth century New York City.

A particularly persistent set of rumors places her in a rundown old church on the edge of the city, and eventually they go to check it out. They go at night, armed to the teeth, expecting a fight.

Instead, they find Juno waiting for them, lounged carelessly across a high backed chair, gaze distant and thoughtful as she stares out the window. "Desmond," she says, without looking away from the window. "Correct?"

 _Oh, no_ , Ezio says.

 _I mean…_ Desmond sighs, a heavy, resigned breath back in the real world that makes someone—Rebecca, probably, or maybe one of the other techs—give him a little smack on the arm. _It's not like she didn't know my name before. And she can travel through time, it wouldn't exactly be hard for her to figure out that you guys are all my ancestors._

 _Can I have a little more focus and a little less complaining, maybe?_ Haytham snaps.

 _Well,_ Altair says. _Answer her._

 _What?_ Desmond asks.

 _She wants to talk. And she hasn't even reached for her apple yet. Something's changed._

"Desmond," Juno prompts, and Desmond can't deny the small shiver that runs down his spine to hear _her_ say _his_ name.

Haytham does an admirable job of giving her a cool glare. "In a matter of speaking," he says. "But if you want to deal, you're going to have to deal with me."

"No," Juno says, still not looking at him. "This is not the time for deals. There never was a time for _deals_. Would you make a deal with a dog? With a slug?"

 _Rude,_ Ezio says, but it's obvious his heart's not really in it. He's watching Juno as closely as the rest of them are. There's an air of unspoken danger in the room, like the sky just before a thunderstorm.

"Then what is this?" Haytham asks impatiently.

"This is a chance for you—and your descendant, and anyone else you're working with—to surrender. You've fought well, for humans, and I can respect that. But it's over now. Whatever victories you think you've won, they won't matter in the long run. In a few days, this will all be over. I'm giving you the chance to surrender now, to serve me as generals."

 _Disgusting,_ Altair says.

Haytham stares at him for almost a full minute. Several times, Shay looks like he's about to say something, but each time he pulls himself back, clearly trusting Haytham to take point.

And maybe that's a good thing, maybe not, but either way, what Haytham says next certainly makes an impact. "I don't believe that for a moment," he says. Stiff, cold, hands clasped behind his back, glaring at her like she's an impudent Templar recruit instead of a powerful member of a long dead species. "You have no respect for anything or anyone, and even if you did, your respect would be worth nothing. You think you're greater than human when in fact I would trust any _infant_ more than I would ever trust you."

"Then die," Juno says, and reaches for her apple.

 _Wards!_ Haytham snaps, and Altair—far away and long ago in Masyaf—reaches for his apple. Haytham doesn't have an apple so the ward doesn't quite come out right, but there's a crackling outburst of power that takes all of them (including, apparently, Juno) by surprise. She jerks to her feet, apple momentarily forgotten as she throws a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sudden surge of light.

The light, and the power that comes with it, are so strong they seem to be physically present, in the room with the rest of them. Desmond almost desyncs but grits his teeth and mentally hangs on tight, and just when he thinks he's not going to be able to stand it for another second, it's over.

The light fades. The room is empty, apart from Haytham and Shay.

"Well," Haytham says aloud. His voice seems oddly loud in the stunned quiet. "I suppose that's warded her off, at least."

 _I… yes,_ Altair says. _I could have been more careful in how I did it though._

Haytham shakes his head, his whole body slumping as he relaxes. "Thank God," he says, with more emotion than Desmond is used to hearing from him. "That's over."

Shay walks to the other side of the room, to where Juno had been sitting before the apple's explosion. "No sign of her," he says, after a cursory examination. "She didn't leave anything behind."

"Good," Haytham says. "That's exactly how much of her I want to have to deal with."

 _Her people, the one she had under her control, should come back to themselves soon enough too,_ Altair says. _The people she took in Masyaf recovered. It took a while, but they did come back to themselves._

It's fairly obvious that they aren't Haytham's first concern, but he does a respectable enough job of feigning interest, and the rest of them let it pass. _Then we're done,_ he says. _It's over._

-/-

But it's not, of course. Oh, maybe it is for Haytham, and for Shay. Now that Juno's out of their time, they don't have anything to worry about. Desmond and Javier are pulled out of the animus and met with cheers and enthusiastic slaps on the back.

Lucy's nowhere to be seen, Desmond can't help but notice.

The best part, to him, is when Javier beckons him over, after everyone else's attention has drifted away from him a little bit. "I think I can hear him now," he tells Desmond. "Shay? When that light, whatever it was—"

"The apple?"

"Sure, yea. When that lit up, and forced Juno out, I think it must have connected me to Shay, too. I could _hear_ him, and he heard me."

"And that's good?" Desmond asks. _He_ thinks it is, he likes being able to hear his ancestors, and know they're on the same side. But he can also see how that might creep some other people out, and he's not sure right off the bat if Javier is one of them.

"It is," Javier says. "I—thank you."

So yes. That's probably the best part.

His dad and a couple other people have gone to get the amulet they'll need to get into the inner part of the temple. Compared to Juno and her plans, saving the world from the impending solar flare has become something almost like an afterthought. It's still something that needs to be taken care of, though, and with Juno driven off to some new time period (they'll have to start all over, again, tracking her down) at least they have a little bit of down time.

Desmond sits down and sends Elijah an email—it's a long process, the way writing an email to someone he doesn't know well is _always_ a long process. But he's going to try, and right now, with the end of the world… as much as he'd like to do more, this is all he can manage.

About half an hour after hitting send, Desmond heads to bed, feeling pretty good about the way things have gone today. They've driven Juno away from another era, Javier's been connected with his ancestor, and hopefully he'll be able to wake up to an email from Elijah tomorrow.

-/-

But back in the warehouse, Elijah is sleeping badly. Finally, a little past one in the morning, he wakes up from his fitful sleep, shooting bolt upright and breathing heavily as he tries to process what he's just woken up _knowing._

His dad's in danger. A lot of danger, because Juno's coming for him, she's already there, she's _hidden_ and Elijah is the only one that even knows it. And he knows that he's going to have to do something about it, because no one else will. He's spent his entire childhood telling people things he's not supposed to know, and watching them react with confusion at best or hatred at worst, and he doesn't really believe this is going to be any different.

He throws food and a change of clothes into a backpack, then walks off. Just leaves. He has no idea how he's going to get to his dad—last time, they'd driven there, and Elijah isn't too excited about the idea of walking across highways all night. But he has this sudden, bone deep knowledge that if he doesn't go now, if he doesn't help his dad, he's never going to see him again.

If he doesn't figure out what he's supposed to do, his dad is going to die.

 **-/-**

 **Getting pretty close to the end now! I have one more chapter that's all the way planned out, and then just chapters 33 and 34, where all the planning I have is "Chapter 33: Stuff happens?" and "Chapter 34: Ending"**

 **... Endings are not my favorite part to write, please have patience with me :)**


	32. Chapter 32

Elijah's three blocks away when something makes him turn around, just in time to see Senu come flying down to land on his shoulder. Elijah winces, and tries to shrug her off—he likes Senu just fine, but she's Bayek's eagle, and she's usually with him or Khemu or sometimes Layla. Elijah's rarely spent time with her.

"Get off," he whispered at the bird. "You're heavy…"

Senu chirps quietly, and although it's hard to read an eagle's expression, Elijah thinks she looks disappointed.

"I'm not running away," Elijah whispers at her. "I'm going to help my dad, okay? It's really important."

Senu chirps again.

"Please?" Elijah asks. "Let me do this. Please don't tell anyone…"

He almost feels silly, bargaining with a bird, but this isn't just any bird, this is Senu. He's always had the sense that Senu knows a lot more than she lets on. He kind of has this private theory that while Bayek can look through Senu's eyes, maybe that connection has made her much more intelligent than any other eagle could get to be naturally.

She waits just long enough to make sure Elijah is absolutely sure that she's disappointed in him. Then she pushes off his shoulder and flies back toward the warehouse. Elijah feels a little pang of guilt, watching her go, but he knows he can't stay.

He turns his back on Senu, and starts walking again.

It's less than half an hour before he hears footsteps behind him, and turns around _again_ to see Khemu and Elina running after him, Senu flying overhead like she's watching over them.

"What are you guys doing here?" Elijah demands.

"What are _you_ doing?" Elina asks. She catches up to him and grabs his arm. "Where are you going?"

"My dad," Elijah mutters. "He's in trouble and I need to go help him."

"Senu came and woke us up," Khemu says. "We're going to help you."

"It's probably going to be dangerous," Elijah says, although of course he has no idea what he's walking into.

"Do you want help or not?" Khemu says.

"I—"

"Well we're going to help whether you want us to or not," Khemu says. "Come on." And he slings his arm across Elijah's shoulder, and Elina lets her hand slip down Elijah's arm until she's holding his hand, and the three of them start walking again, with Senu circling them overhead.

It's odd. He's never imagined that he'd be setting off like this—on an adventure that's also a rescue mission that's also _terrifying_ because the stakes are so high, with friends on either side of him. A few months ago, this would have been impossible.

"Can I just say something?" Elijah asks, a little while after the sun starts to come up. They've been walking for a long time now, and they're all tired. The light around them is pink tinged, and everything around them has a kind of rosy, surreal glow. "You guys… I don't know what we're going to run into when we get there. I don't know _why_ Dad's in danger, I just know that he is. But, uh… if anything happens to us?" His voice rises up, like a question, but it's just _nerves_. He doesn't want to think about anything happening to them. "I just want to say that I love you guys. I really do, you guys… changed my life."

He says it in English, so Elina gets it right. She says _oh_ and turns to give Elijah a hug. "You guys are the best," she says. "I never had anybody like you either."

Then Khemu manages to puzzle through the English, and at least get the gist of it. His smile is crooked in a way that makes it look like his excitement is just leaking out of him. He doesn't say anything, but for Khemu, who will gladly talk anyone's ear off, the fact that he's been made speechless is worth at least a thousand words.

So on they go, together, toward the unknown.

-/-

The first Desmond knows about anything happening is when the sound of shouting comes echoing down from the front of the cave. It's late morning, almost noon, and he's enjoying the break from the animus now that they have Haytham's time warded against Juno.

He's with Layla in the little makeshift kitchen (an overly charitable term for the mini fridge and microwave setup), sitting over a late breakfast of ramen, talking about where they think Juno is going to go next. She has the apple today, and he sees her flinch toward it in an almost defensive instinct.

"Sounds like Berg," she says, hand pausing just shy of the apple. She relaxes. "What's he so upset about?"

He and Bayek had come out with her late yesterday to spend the night, and to work on planning. The last Desmond had seen of them, they'd been looking at some animus readouts and speculating whether there are any signs of Juno.

"Does he usually get this angry about things?" Desmond asks.

"No," Layla says. "I mean, he's not a smiling beam of sunshine, but…" She trails off, and gets to her feet. Apparently she feels comfortable enough now that she knows it's Berg to just leave the apple where it is, because she doesn't make another move to grab it. "We should get over there and find out what's going on."

"Absolutely unbelievable," Berg is snarling by the time Desmond and Layla have jogged to the front of the Temple, close enough to make out exactly what he's saying. "Elina, you need to be better than this—you always _have_ been better than this. It's that boy that's—"

"No it's _not_ , it's not!"

"That's teaching you not to respect anyone."

"Dad!"

"How did you think this was going to go? What was going on inside your mind when you decided it would be a _good_ idea to come here?"

"We couldn't wait."

The first voice Desmond had heard arguing with Berg had been a girl, one he doesn't know, but this second one is unmistakably Elijah. Even if they've only met once, Desmond doesn't think he could ever mistake his son's voice with anyone else's—he just sounds different, almost aloof. And that's him, now.

Desmond takes that as his cue to cue to step up and insert himself into the conversation. "What's going on here?" he asks, raising his voice a little so Berg will be able to hear him over his own shouting.

Berg spins around, anger burned into his face like fissures in a rock, and for a second doesn't seem to know what to say. That at least gives Desmond a couple seconds to take in what's going on. There's Berg, obviously, standing between Desmond and the others like a wall. Then past him, Elijah standing slightly in front of two other kids that don't look that much older than him. The girl, he's guessing, must be Berg's daughter. She doesn't look much like him, but there's definitely _something_ in her face that mirrors his. The other boy is obviously Bayek's son. The resemblance there is too obvious to overlook.

"What's going on is that your son decided to take his friends on a middle of the night wander, all the way from the warehouse to here," Berg says. "And for absolutely _no_ good reason."

"There's a good reason," Elijah says, and his voice is a measured, almost flat contrast to Berg's spitting anger.

"You could have been hurt," Berg says, and although his words almost seem to be an answer to Elijah, he's only looking at his daughter. "You could have been hit by a car, or kidnapped, or lost somewhere. What made you decide to just walk off without telling anyone?"

"Dad's in danger," Elijah says.

Wait, what?

"And I suppose you just _know_ that," Berg says scathingly. There's no doubt at all from his tone what he thinks of Elijah's unexplained knowledge, or of Elijah himself, really.

"Yes."

"That's bullshit," Berg says, and Elijah flinches. He tries to hide it, but Desmond sees. "You're creating a problem where there is no problem, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised—you've done nothing but cause trouble since the day you forced yourself into our lives—"

"Stop."

Desmond's as surprised as anyone else when he speaks up, but once he does, he's committed himself. There's no going back. He steps forward, looking right at Berg.

"Good," Berg says. "Maybe you can do something about this—"

"Don't finish that sentence," Desmond says, and his voice is almost as flat as Elijah's. Almost, but not quite, because he's genuinely angry, angry enough that he's forgotten Elijah's proclamation that he's supposed to be in danger. "There's nothing wrong with him, and I need you to stop shouting."

"You barely know him," Berg says. " _I_ know him better than you do."

"If you knew him," Desmond says. "Then you wouldn't be saying all that shit about him. You're wrong, and you're taking your bad mood out on a bunch of kids."

"Fine," Berg says. "Then forget that he's a Sage, and he's never going to be normal. How about the fact that he had some crazy vision and dragged his friends out of the safehouse in the middle of the night, and walked them all the way here?"

"We _wanted_ to come," Elina tries to insist, but her dad doesn't even look at her.

Desmond takes a deep breath, looks away from Berg, and toward Elijah. "Come here," he says. He makes sure to keep his voice quiet, so he won't sound angry, so he won't sound like Berg. Elijah hesitates, then ducks past Berg to get to Desmond. Once he's inside the temple, it's like a spell has broken. Layla steps up to take Khemu back to Bayek, which just leaves Elina with Berg. Both boys keep looking back at her almost like they're apologizing, and Desmond does feel bad, leaving her alone with her dad. But what's he supposed to do? Berg is her dad, and he has to do what he thinks is right for her—but Desmond is _Elijah's_ dad, and this is his first chance to protect his son from what he must have seen too much of already in his life.

He puts his arm around Elijah, and leads him off somewhere quieter. They don't go too far, because Elijah's getting noticeably more twitchy the farther into the temple they go, but just far enough to have their privacy.

Elijah sits on a jut of rock and Desmond sits down across from him. "You really are in danger," Elijah says.

Oh right. _That_. "What kind of danger?" he asks.

Elijah, all of a sudden, won't meet his gaze. "I… don't know. I think I thought I'd know when I got here, but now there's too much other stuff going on, too much…" He buries his head in his hands. "There's so much of her here, I can't hear anything else."

"Who?" Desmond asks. "Juno?"

Elijah nods, and wraps his skinny arms around his chest. "Yea. She was here for ages and ages and she's just like… all over the place."

"Wait a second," Desmond says. "Was? You said she _was_ here? She should still be here though, right? Because there's one version of Juno, the one we've been fighting, but she's from the same timeline as when I died. There should still be a Juno here that hasn't been freed yet, like—like how Layla had to go scare her past self off."

"No," Elijah says. "I mean… yea, that makes sense, but—"

Desmond can actually _see_ when the knowledge comes to Elijah. He's pale to start with, but his face goes suddenly white and his whole body stiffens.

"She killed herself," he whispers. "I mean—not like… the Juno you're fighting killed the one that was here. Because she thought no one could _really_ be a threat to her except herself, so she came here, and…" He flinches. "That's _awful_."

Desmond has no idea how to help. He barely knows Elijah, and even if he did he wouldn't know how to handle _this_. This extra knowledge that Elijah shouldn't have and doesn't deserve to be cursed with. He sighs and drops his head into his hands.

"And Dad—"

Desmond looks back up when Elijah speaks up again, tentatively. "Yea?" he asks.

"I know something else," Elijah says. He fidgets, then asks, "Do you know someone called Lucy?"

"Yea," Desmond says. "She's here. Why?"

"Because," Elijah says, very slowly and quietly. " _She's_ the danger."

"Oh," Desmond says. He gives Elijah a little smile. "That's what you came all the way out here for? I know she's a Templar, it's no big deal. We're making it work."

"No," Elijah says. "Not that, there's plenty of Templars back home. Dad, Juno got her."

It takes maybe five seconds for the implications of that to sink in. For Desmond to remember how weird Lucy's been acting lately, and to realize that Elijah's right. He curses, quick but heartfelt, and jumps to his feet. As he takes off running, eyes scanning the cave until he spots her. He can feel his ancestors flooding into his mind in some kind of supernatural response to the danger, but he doesn't have time to explain. He's halfway across the open space in the middle of the cave when he spots her, close to where he'd been talking to Layla before the kids showed up.

Then he remembers something else—Layla had left the apple there when they got up and went to see what was going on.

Desmond puts on another burst of speed, and manages to get up close to her, to see the perfectly blank expression on her face, to see the apple in her left hand. Unfortunately, he's so focused on the apple that he doesn't even see the knife in her right hand. Not until it's too late.

When she lunges forward, stabbing her blade into his side, time almost seems to freeze. The last, bitter thought that Desmond has before the shock of pain takes thought away, is the horrible irony of it all. He remembers standing in her place, once, under the coliseum. With an apple in his right hand and his hidden blade on the left, Juno's voice whispering in his ear to _kill her, kill her, kill her._

And now, apparently, it's her turn to kill him.

"Dad!" Elijah screams, and if Desmond could have forced the stab wound to close out of sheer force of will, then the pain in Elijah's voice would have been enough to make him do it. But because he's only human, because he can't do anything, Desmond falls to the ground instead, and starts to bleed out.

 **-/-**

 **Is it weird that I feel worse for Elijah right now than Desmond?**


	33. Chapter 33

Lucy can't make herself care when Desmond goes down. It doesn't feel like something that concerns her, it doesn't feel like something _she's_ done. It's all so distant and unimportant, and if Lucy had still been fully herself, she would have been horrified by the way she feels now.

But now, today, as she stands her with blood dripping down her knife, all she can think about how pleased Juno is going to be when Lucy brings the apple to her. She drops the knife, almost as an afterthought, and cocks her head slightly to one side as she watches it land on Desmond.

She only manages two steps before something small and fast and vicious that she hadn't been paying attention to charges straight at her and knocks her completely off her feet. The apple goes flying and Lucy kicks out at her mini attacker—it's only after the first thirty seconds of desperate, dirty fighting (she kicks her attacker in the mouth and they bite her hard enough to draw blood in return) that she realizes it's a kid.

And it's another thirty seconds after that when Lucy realizes the kid is actually winning.

She's a seasoned fighter (if, admittedly, a bit out of practice after so long working on the animus), but there's something in the kid's mismatched eyes that Lucy has only seen once or twice before. This isn't a life or death fight for this kid—it's something _more important_.

He screams, and for a second Lucy thinks it's pain, and she thinks she's winning. But it's not pain, it's something angry and almost primal, and she doesn't recognize that until it's too late. He squirms and wriggles his way on top of her, slams a knee down on top of her chest hard enough to make her stop breathing for a second from the shock of it, and reaches an arm across her to grab at the apple.

"No," Lucy croaks, the word barely making it out past the knee pressing into her chest. She tightens her grip on the apple but he doesn't seem to care. His small hand worms its way through Lucy's fingers just to touch it, not grab it or pull it away, and then his other hand presses into her forehead, and something—

Something starts to happen.

-/-

Elijah's mouth is bleeding. He thinks she might have kicked a tooth out, but he can't take the time to check right now. There are bruises forming all up and down his side, too, and one of his legs feels like it's been twisted the wrong way where Lucy had it pinned for a while.

It doesn't matter.

He's not thinking about anything right now, just acting on sheer, angry instinct. Only unfortunately for her, Elijah's instincts aren't entirely human. Unfortunately for her, Elijah is a Sage. All his life, he's put up with the ebb and flow of bits of knowledge leaking into his mind, whether he wants them to or not. It's not a leak now, it's a flood of instinct and memory that isn't his, hundreds and thousands of Sage lifetimes reaching back all the way to the beginning of humanity, practically.

There have been Sages that spent their lives learning how to fight, dirty nasty brawlers that know how to take every advantage offered to them. In the back of his mind, a long dead pirate called Roberts shows him where to kick and bite to hurt her the most, and a knight called Molay from even farther back telling him _this is how you fight, this is where it hurts_.

And all of them, every single one, with this vague, half formed knowledge of how you use an apple. Elijah clenches one hand around it, as close as he can get with Lucy still clinging on herself, and grabs at her head with the other hand. He's done this once before, with his grandpa and Elina, when Juno had implanted something into their minds after holding them captive. This time he has a little experience, he has help, and most importantly he doesn't care much if Lucy is hurt in the process.

He'll burn Juno out of her if he has to.

Elijah is very dimly aware that there are people around him, some shouting, but so far none of them have tried to step in and stop him so he just doesn't care. His hand starts to hurt where he's holding it, like fire travelling through it—then that fire burns up his arm, through his chest, and across his other arm into the hand that's clenched down over Lucy's forehead.

It _hurts_ , but in a way Elijah welcomes it. He already feels like his heart is breaking, and it almost seems right that he should have this physical pain to deal with on top of what he's feeling inside. The pain builds and builds and builds, until finally Elijah has to scream—he screws his eyes shut and opens his mouth, and he's almost surprised when it's only sound that comes out and not more of that burning fire.

And then it's over. Juno's hold on Lucy is gone. Elijah knows he's done his job when Lucy's death grip on the apple goes slack, and he lets go of it himself in response. The apple rolls away, and Elijah—very slowly—feels the fire inside him start to fade. He's panting, he realizes, and there's sweat just pouring off him. He pushes himself laboriously off Lucy, and after a quick, suspicious glance at Lucy—she looks like she's unconscious—he collapses flat on the ground and just breathes.

"Elijah."

He forces his eyes open again and bites back a sigh when he sees Berg's face loom into view above him. "I did what I had to do," he says flatly. "She killed my dad, and she was going to take the apple back to Juno. That was the quickest way to stop her."

Berg is quiet for a moment, and it hits Elijah that for the first time (ever), Berg is looking at him with something more than dismissal or disdain.

(Respect—the knowledge comes suddenly into Elijah's mind that Berg actually, genuinely respects what he's done and why he's done it)

"Your father isn't dead," Berg says, and Elijah's eyes widen in shock. He scrambles up into a sitting position.

"He's not dead?" he demands. "But Lucy—I saw her, she stabbed him. Dad went down—"

"He's still breathing," Berg says. "And I've seen men survive worse. Some of the others are taking him back to the main road where they can call an ambulance. I can't guarantee that he'll still be alive when all this is over—" Because no, he wouldn't, Berg wasn't the kind of man that would give out false reassurances. "But he was alive when he left."

Elijah feels like his bones have all just been teleported outside of him. He goes flat and limp and lets out a tiny sob.

Berg grabs him around the arm just above his elbow, and Elijah allows himself to be dragged to his feet. "Lucy," Berg says. "What did you do to her?"

"I just took out what Juno did to her," Elijah says. He pauses, then admits, "She… it might have hurt her a little bit."

"Understandable," Berg says. "But this isn't where we stop. Does Juno have any other spies here?"

He thinks of his grandpa and Elina. "Not anymore," he says.

"Good. Then we'll have to take the fight to Juno. She's feeling threatened enough to plant Lucy here, this is the time to press whatever advantage we have. Do you know where she is?"

Elijah opens his mouth to say no, but then all of a sudden he does. "Yes," he says. "And she's close."

Berg's smile is chilling. "Perfect," he says.

-/-

Berg and Elijah spend half an hour huddled together, whispering, making plans. Layla watches them from a little distance away, arms crossed as she leans up against one of the uneven temple walls. "Look at that," she says to Bayek, gesturing toward the unlikely pair. "Did you ever think you'd see the two of them working together like that?"

"No," Bayek admits. "Layla."

Something in his tone makes her reluctant to look at him. "Yea?"

"You were supposed to be watching the apple," he says. "When Layla took it."

She drops her gaze. It's true. She was. But she's been hoping no one else would notice. "I forgot," she whispers. "I can't believe it either, but I _forgot_. I was with Desmond, and we heard Berg shouting, and we went to see what was going on, and… left the apple behind."

He could have said more. If he'd been angry, Layla knows she would have deserved it, but somehow the silent disappointment is worse.

"I'm going to check on Khemu," Bayek says, and walks away from her without another word. Once he's gone, Senu drops down to perch on Layla's shoulder.

"He'll come around, won't he?" Lucy whispers to the eagle. "I know I messed up, but…"

Senu chirps, which could have meant anything.

She stays there until Berg and Elijah break up their impromptu little meeting, and it's only the sound of Berg's heavy boots coming toward her that snaps her out of her funk.

"Layla," he says. "We have a plan that just might work to get rid of Juno. But I have to know—are you interested in being part of it? I know Juno scares—"

"I'm not afraid," Layla says, straightening up and looking at him. She is, of course, but right now the need to prove herself is stronger. "I… we've been fighting Juno for a long time now. And I've run away from her every single time but… this is my fault, isn't it? If I hadn't walked away from the apple, Lucy wouldn't have gotten it."

"Probably not," Berg says. "I know I wouldn't have walked away from something that important."

Layla flushes, more embarrassed than angry, but only just.

"But it doesn't matter," Berg goes on. "Elijah stopped Lucy from taking the apple back to Juno, and we didn't lose anything too valuable. Now are you going to come with us to fight back?"

She knows what this is. This is _you screwed up, now here's a chance to make up for it._ And she's going to jump at the chance, even if she is still afraid. "Yea," she says. "What's the plan?"

-/-

"We're going to trap her," Elijah tells Elina and Khemu. The three of them are holed up in a little alcove too small for any of the adults to fit into, a smattering of snack wrappers strewn on the ground around them. "We're going to lure her back here, and I'm going to trap her."

"You can do that?" Elina asks.

"I think so," Elijah says. "It was her prison for thousands and thousands of years, there's no reason it can't hold her again."

He leans forward and steals a Cheeto from Elina, then chews it slowly. He's tired from waking up in the middle of the night, walking all the way here, then fighting Lucy and using the apple on her.

She still hasn't woken up, and Elijah's starting to feel a tiny bit jealous of her—he wishes he could sleep.

"She has a body now," Khemu points out. "How…" He sighs, sounding as tired as Elijah feels, and mumbles the rest in Egyptian. "How are you going to get her in here if she already had a body?"

And Elijah doesn't answer, of course, because the truth is he doesn't know. Berg has some kind of a plan, something that just seems to Elijah like 'beat her until she stops moving,' and Elijah has no idea how they're going to do that when they haven't been able to hurt her so far, but Berg has only _just_ stopped hating him, and Elijah's not going to argue that plan. His job is just to figure out a way to get Juno back into the Temple that had been her prison for so long.

He's pretty sure he can do it. He's pretty sure, now that he knows how to call on all the previous Sages that have lived be fore him, that he can do his part.

As long as everyone else does theirs.

"I guess we'll figure it out," he says out loud, slowly.

"Why don't you just... you know, really kill her?" Elina asks the question in almost a whisper, like she's nervous talking about actually killing someone. "Not just trap her?"

Elijah thinks over how to answer that for a minute, even though he really doesn't think outright killing Juno would be a good idea. "So you know how... a Sage is just being born with the face of Juno's husband, Aita? And all these weird... things that we know, that we shouldn't. Juno did all that. She figured out how to make it work. I wouldn't put it past her to have done that with herself, too, if she dies." And he knows deep down that he's probably just being paranoid, but... "I can't let that happen to anyone else if I can help it," he says. "I'm not going to risk some little girl in the future being born with Juno's face and... her memories. So if we kill her, and something like that happens, we can at least learn from Juno how to fix things. If we kill her, we'll never fix anything."

Silence. Apparently, Elina doesn't know how to answer that.

Elijah rolls over onto his back and lets his eyes close. Outside their little hole, the adults are busy gathering weapons and whatever, but all Elijah is going to need is the apple. He doesn't have to do anything to prep, nothing but worry about how his dad's doing.

His grandpa texted him about half an hour. He's in the same ER where Khemu was saved, being operated on. Hopefully they'll know soon if he'll come out alive. Right now, Elijah doesn't want to think about that, so he lets his eyes drift shut, and prays for sleep.

Half an hour later, he's jolted groggily out of a half sleep by the sound of someone forcing themselves into the hole. Elijah cracks an eye open and frowns at the older boy, a teenager, who just _barely_ fits into the small space. He recognizes him as Javier, one of the Hidden Ones who Elijah has never really had a chance to talk to before.

"Sorry," Javier says, when he sees the three of them (Elijah spread out on his back, Elina curled up with her back to the wall, and Khemu still sitting up but clearly nodding off). "Did I—are you guys napping?"

" _No_ ," Elijah mutters, dragging himself up. He's still young enough to be slightly offended by the implication that he needs naptime. Khemu jerks a little at Elijah's protest, and focuses blearily on Javier, but Elina's eyes stay closed, and she doesn't move. "What are you doing in here?"

"I'm looking for you," Javier says. "You're Desmond's kid, right?"

The pain in Elijah's chest seems to get a little worse. "Yes," he says. "Why?"

"Because I think his ancestors might be able to help," Javier says. "I've been working with him a little, because one of his ancestors knew one of mine, and—ok, so… see, one of his ancestors has figured out how to ward places against Juno. I feel like that can only help if we're finally going after her." He explains, briefly, what he knows about Elijah's ancestors, the ones that his dad had apparently gotten so close to.

"It would probably help," Elijah says. "But Dad's in the hospital. He can't exactly help."

"He's your ancestor too," Javier points out, which is factually true so Elijah doesn't argue it. "And from what I saw, he could sort of reach from his apple to Desmond's apple, and do things that way."

"You want me to try and use the apple to get in touch with him?" Elijah asks.

Javier nods.

"Sure, I guess." He's already exhausted and sad, this probably isn't going to make things worse.

-/-

Lucy wakes up an indefinite amount of time later, feeling like everything's been torn out of her head and scraped raw. She remembers, all at once, what she's done, and doesn't know what to do. She has no idea how to react. Someone else has been inside her head, writing her thoughts and dictating what she does. That's terrifying in a way she just can't deal with.

She hears footsteps, and realizes someone is walking over to her. Layla.

"Where's Juno?" she asks, without preamble.

And Lucy remembers exactly where she'd met with Juno. She doesn't hesitate to tell Layla, because if that's all she can do to make up for _stupidly_ letting herself get caught out by Juno, she'll shout her location to the heavens.

-/-

Elijah doesn't get the apple again until they're outside the temple and heading for the place where Lucy says she met with Juno. He's in the back seat of a truck being driven by one of the Hidden Ones, wedged into the corner with no one really paying him any attention.

He curls himself around the apple so no one will see the light, and tries to reach out to his very distant ancestor. A thousand years is a lot of space to try and cross, especially for someone that Elijah doesn't know at all. He's not feeling very optimistic about it, and it's not until he feels an arm around his shoulder that he realizes _something_ has happened.

Elijah takes his eyes off the apple, and looks around—no one is touching him.

 _You,_ a voice in his head says. _Are not Desmond._

Elijah squeaks.

The voice in his head seems to smile, and Elijah doesn't even know what that _means_. How can a voice smile?

 _Altair?_ he tries, cautiously.

 _And you are..?_

Elijah tells him everything, hoping Javier is right about this guy being able to help, and that the voice in his head isn't lying about who he is. At the end of it, when Elijah gets to Javier's suggestion about having Altair around to ward them against Juno, the smile is gone, and Altair simply seems very sad.

 _So Desmond is not dead,_ he says. _I suppose that's good. When he was… hurt, it seemed very final._

 _He might still die,_ Elijah says, because he's simply too tired to lie.

Altair pauses, taking that in. Then he sighs. _Of course I'll help_ , he says. _But for now, sleep. I'll wake you when we get there._

Elijah almost doesn't want to, because they're almost to where Lucy had been with Juno, and he's _dreading_ it, but eventually he's just too tired to stay awake a second longer. The last thing he feels is his head thumping into the truck's window as he falls asleep.

 **-/-**

 **So this chapter is basically 3,000 words of procrastination as I try to avoid actual fighting? I hate actual fighting :(**


	34. Chapter 34

The forest where Lucy had met with Juno is silent as the Hidden Ones approach. They come at her from all directions, moving quietly but essentially making no attempts to hide themselves. That's part of the plan. They're not playing games anymore, they're not trying to avoid her. This is going to be, it has to be, their final battle.

Elijah moves with the rest of them, heart pounding as he cups the apple close to his chest. He knows that every single person needs to be here, they need their whole group to be here and be _fighting_ if they want to really stop Juno. But Elijah's the only one here with an apple, and if he doesn't protect it as well as he thinks he can, Juno will have two of them. Since she'd manipulated Lucy isn't trying to steal the apple for her, Elijah can only imagine how bad she'd be with both of the apples.

 _Don't be afraid,_ Altair says, and that gives Elijah a little bit of courage. He's reassured to learn that he has an ancestor, a very far away and distant member of his family, that sounds as sure of himself and unflappable as Altair. _This is a fight like any other._

 _I try not to get into fights,_ Elijah says.

His ancestor pauses, considering that. Then he says, _I think it's a good thing you have me, then._

And a good thing it is, because as the group draws closer to Juno, surrounding her in a tight cluster like a net, it does very quickly become a fight. It takes Juno maybe five or six seconds to get over her surprise (clearly, she hadn't been expecting anyone but Lucy to find her here). Then she _flies_ at them.

She doesn't literally fly, of course, but she's faster than she looks, and vicious, and not afraid to fight back now that she's been cornered. Two of the Hidden Ones go down before any of the Hidden Ones have a chance to react, and when she moves it's strangely, almost inhumanely, and it's the stuff of nightmares.

Elijah would have been completely overwhelmed if not for Altair. As Juno moves, he feels himself start to freeze and stiffen up, and his ancestor has to prod him into moving. _You have the apple,_ he reminds Elijah, as if Elijah _needs_ the reminding. _She will want that more than anything else right now, and you need to get it away from her._

Elijah shakes his head to snap himself out of his fear. _I need to lead her back to the Temple,_ he says. _To trap her._

 _Yes._

The word is like a starting pistol, giving Elijah exactly the right motivation to get him moving at last. He takes off running, and knows he must be the least subtle person here. While the highly trained Assassins and Templars dart around Juno, trying (and occasionally succeeding) to hurt Juno, Elijah clutches the apple to his chest and takes off running back toward the road.

The next half hour is an absolute nightmare. Elijah has never run this long or this hard in his whole life, and the ever present threat of Juno just behind him doesn't help at all. Soon enough he's panting, his legs are burning, and there are tears just streaming down his cheeks from a combination of fear and exhaustion. He doesn't want to be here. He wants to be in the waiting room of the ER with his grandpa, waiting for his dad to wake up.

He's going to be there to see it, though, he's _determined_ to be there. That thought gives him the strength to keep running.

Around him, the others are still fighting, but now they're protecting him. They're protecting _him_.

 _It's because of the apple,_ Elijah tells Altair, just because he can, because it doesn't use any oxygen for him to talk to Altair in his head, and because it's a good distraction from the demon at his back. _Otherwise they wouldn't be doing that._

But at the same time, it's weirdly almost magical. By this point Elijah is back on the road, charging ahead as fast as he possibly can, and he's so tired he's almost numb, and he keeps catching glimpses of men and women dashing into view, getting in a blow or two against Juno, and then sometimes falling back, sometimes being hit, but always buying him just a little more time, just a few more steps…

And then he's back at the Temple. He stumbles down the first few steps of the incline at the beginning, then tumbles the rest of the way. His shoulders are bruised from the fall and the rolling, but at least it's faster than running would have been. Elijah scrambles back to his feet and looks back at the entrance, then freezes. Juno is so close to him, and they still need to hurt her before they can even _try_ and trap her.

She sees him, and Elijah can't read her expression but he can see that she sees him, and more importantly she can see that he has the apple. And apparently Elijah's fight or flight instinct is _extremely_ messed up because right now when he should be running, he can't even make his legs move.

And then Layla comes up out of nowhere (or apparently nowhere—Elijah's not looking at anything but Juno, so it's hard to tell where Layla might have come from). Her face is chalk white and she's obviously terrified, but she doesn't hesitate to step up while Juno's whole attention is fixed on Elijah.

And she stabs her.

Elijah takes a quick step back as his brain abruptly connects to his legs again, but he doesn't go far. Layla's blade had struck true, and Juno is visibly staggered. Elijah tightens his hold on the apple, and _prays_ that he'll know how to use it to trap Juno when the time comes. Because it's coming soon, he doesn't have to supernaturally know things to see that Juno's badly injured.

Layla tears her blade back out, a smear of blood comes with it. Two or three of the other Hidden Ones catch up then, and Elijah has to force himself to keep watching as she dies. She's fighting it as hard as she can, and she manages to get two of the Hidden Ones before she finally falls. One goes down with a hard blow to the side of the head and doesn't move, and the other one she gets with her apple, and turns on the others in answer to Juno's almost frantic _"Kill them!"_

"Elijah," Layla says. She's panting still pale, and her eyes are wide. From her expression, she's not entirely clear on what Elijah is going to do now. "Are you—"

He nods, although he's not sure, and Layla shifts her attention to the Hidden One that Juno had mind controlled into trying to kill them. When this is all over, Elijah is going to have to see if he can help him, too. But right now…

He kneels in the pooling blood next to Juno, and forces himself to put a hand on her forehead. There's a slight, pulsating warmth coming from her, and Elijah doesn't know if that's normal for the precursors or not. It's almost like a heartbeat, gradually slowing as Elijah holds his hand there.

Her eyes fix on his face. " _Aita_ ," she says.

Elijah hates doing this. He wishes he could trust her to just die but he _can't_. She's looking at him and seeing her centuries dead husband because she'd done that, she'd created the Sages with Aita's face. Elijah is scared that she has something else lined up for after her death, some booby trap-ish surprise.

He makes a little noise, and opens himself up as a channel between Juno and the apple. Spreads himself to the Temple, and ignores her cry of protest as he starts to trap her back in the same place where she'd spent so many thousands of years. If she'd been anyone else, he would have felt bad about this.

But Juno's done some pretty terrible things. Some really unimaginably awful things. Elijah closes his eyes and steels himself against her reaction, and wishes that someone else could do this job.

When he opens his eyes again, it's because Juno's pulsing warmth has faded.

She's standing in front of him, a few feet away, a shimmering golden phantom with a look of indescribable fury on her insubstantial face.

So it's over. She's trapped. Elijah stares up at her from the ground, then stands up and shuffles over to the man Juno had mind controlled. It's so easy now to undo it. He's had too much practice. Elijah simply raises the hand that's not holding the apple and rests it for a moment on the man's forehead.

"Is there anyone else?" he mumbles, not looking at Layla as he lets go of the man's forehead.

"A few," Layla says. "But it's going to take some time to get them all rounded up and back here. Go get some rest, Elijah."

But he doesn't rest. He finds a place to sit down and lets things happen around him until finally the last of the apple controlled people have been helped. Then Elijah drops the apple—he never wants to see it again, he _really_ doesn't—and goes to find the closest person with car keys. He really just wants to go see his dad.

-/-

When Desmond cracks an eye open, the first sensation that hits him is overwhelming pain. He groans, and forces his eyes open the rest of the way, because he's not entirely sure where he is or if there's any danger.

There isn't. He's in a hospital bed, and it's clean and calm and quiet. Desmond glances down to where most of the pain seems to be centralized, and sees a whole swath of bandages wrapped around his torso.

Then he looks over to one side, and sees his dad sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair, Elijah leaning against his side, mouth slightly open in sleep.

"Dad?" Desmond says quietly, and his voice comes out as a low croak that makes him wince. "Are you—"

"You're awake," his dad says, starting a little, then putting a protective hand on Elijah to keep him from waking. "Finally."

"Finally?" Desmond echoes. "How long—wait, Lucy _stabbed_ me?" The memories are coming back, and they're painful enough that he almost wishes they weren't.

"She did," his dad confirms. "But if it makes any difference to you, she wasn't acting of her own free will at the time."

"Not… right at this second," Desmond admits. "No." He pauses, then asks, "Is she okay?"

"More or less," his dad says. "Elijah was able to save her, actually. He's done a lot."

"He looks like he's been busy," Desmond says, his eyes straying down to Elijah's sleeping form.

His dad gives him all the details of what's happened while he was out, starting with Elijah jumping on Lucy and ending with the trip he and Elijah had taken that morning to activate the eye in the Temple and keep the solar flare from wiping everyone out.

"And you're both okay?" Desmond asks. He gestures to his own left arm, which still throbs from time to time after his close brush with death on December 21.

"Well, Juno wasn't able to interfere," his dad tells him. "Elijah was the one that trapped her in there—he wasn't going to let her kill either one of us. Without her trying to hijack the process, everything worked out."

Desmond just stares at him for a minute, trying to process this. "So it's over," he says. "We won."

His dad nods. "Yes," he says.

"So… what happens now?" Desmond asks. He feels almost lost without a goal, and he's been chasing after Juno for so long that he's not sure where to go from here.

"Life," his dad says, and nudges Elijah awake. The boy resists sleepily for a second or two, then his mismatched eyes blink open, and Desmond grins at him.

" _Dad_ ," Elijah says, and almost jumps to Desmond's side.

-/-

"So are you staying?"

Layla and Bayek are in the warehouse, helping some of the other Hidden Ones with packing everything up. In a few hours, it'll be like they were never here at all. It almost makes Layla sad, honestly—this place isn't much, but the _people_ here are something she's going to miss.

Bayek looks up at her when she asks the question. "Maybe," he says. "I don't think I'll be going back to Egypt, if that's what you're asking. Khemu's supposed to be dead there—he has no future in the past. But I don't know what we'll be able to do in this time now that we don't have a mission anymore."

He won't be the only one to stay in 2012—almost 2013 now—even though it's not his time. Layla plans to stay herself, even though there's another one of her running around out there. The Hidden Ones are split, about half of them wanting to go home, and the other half planning to stay. "You could stay with me," she says.

"And where will you be staying?" Bayek asks.

"That… I don't actually know yet. I can't go back to Abstergo. There's another me there."

"That would complicate things," Bayek agrees.

"So I don't know. I guess I'm going to have to figure it out, the same as you." She gives him an uncertain look, hoping he'll pick up on that. She really doesn't want to go back to being on her own. She really wants to stay with Bayek.

After a moment or two, Bayek sighs, then reaches over and squeezes her shoulder slightly. "Then we should stay together," he says.

"Good," Layla says. "Great. Thank you."

"And Layla."

"Yea?"

He smiles slightly. "I saw what you did when we fought Juno. I saw that you were the first one to injure her. You did very well."

Layla turns her face slightly away from him, to hide her embarrassingly wide smile. "Well," she says. "I decided it was time to stop being afraid of her. I'm not scared anymore."

-/-

Elina hasn't been given a choice about what's going to happen to her now that Juno is trapped in the Temple and the fight here is over. She's not in any danger anymore if she goes home, so she's going home. It's as simple as that.

She has her few possessions in a backpack, and her dad has everything he needs in his wallet or on his phone, so it feels like they're travelling with basically nothing. Elina stands glumly in the doorway, looking at the overcrowded (almost empty now that people have started moving out and moving on) room that has been home for the past few months.

"Elina," her dad says, coming up behind her and putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's time to go."

"I want to see my friends again," she says. "I want to see Khemu and—and Elijah." She doesn't look at him, not sure how he's going to react. He's never had a problem with Khemu, but until very recently, until Elijah basically saved all their butts, he'd had a big problem with Elijah.

"I think that sounds possible," her dad says, and Elina raises her eyes to look him in the face.

"What," she says. "Really?"

He doesn't answer, but he's never really been the kind to repeat himself when he's already given an answer. "Come, Elina," he says, and when she runs after to grab his hand and follow him out, it's safe in the knowledge that this isn't the last chance she'll ever have to see her friends.

-/-

"Dad. _Dad_. Dad!"

Desmond is in a car headed—well, he isn't exactly sure where—with his dad in the driver's seat next to him, and Elijah in the backseat, trying to get his attention. "Yea?" he asks, when Elijah's voice has finally gotten through to him. "What's up?"

He's expecting more questions about how he's feeling. The hospital hadn't exactly been excited to release him early, but Desmond's not about to sit there and let the Templars find him while he's sitting in a hospital. He's still in some pain, but he can live with it.

Elijah doesn't ask if he's feeling okay, or when he'll be back to normal. Instead, he says, "This isn't the end."

Desmond glances over his shoulder, and sees Elijah staring out the window, chin resting in his hand. "What?" he asks.

"This isn't the end of the Hidden Ones," Elijah says. "I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but… something is going to happen. We're going to see everyone again."

And he looks so serious as he says it that Desmond has to believe him. "Sure," he says. "But later. For now… for now, Juno is gone, and we're together, and all we need to do right now is figure out how to be a family."

And Elijah… Elijah turns to stare at him for a second, then breaks out into a smile wider than any Desmond has ever seen before.

 **-/-**

 **So here we are, at the end. Technically I got to the end sometime late yesterday, but I figured I'd wait before I posted it to make sure it still made sense when I wasn't ready to pass out from exhaustion. Only now I'm not sure if it is or not, but I'm _also_ pretty sure I can't write anything better, so... here we are!**

 **So anyway, as you probably know by now if you've been reading my self indulgent author notes, I've been considering a sequel to this. I'm almost 100% going to do it, but I'm going to have to take some time off to do some planning (and speaking of planning-if there are any characters you'd like to see more of, now's the time to speak up and leave a review. I can't promise your favorite will make it in, but I'll at least think about it). I'll also probably do some Khemu-Elijah-Elina scenes in the meantime?**

 **Finally, thank you for reading this far! Thank you for making this fic so much fun to write! Thank you for every review, favorite, and follow. You guys are the actual best.**


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